Key points

Ambition is the desire to rise higher in the world. Aspiration is the desire to become a better person.

Keep in mind that ambition correlates with success but not happiness, well-being, or longevity.

Among the main developmental tasks of successful aging is letting go of profit motives—the demand for results.

I retired two years ago, which threw me (not all at once, but in waves) out of the resume-building, ladder-climbing life I’d known since my early twenties. And it has slowly been relocating my center of gravity from what author Albert Brooks calls resume virtues to eulogy virtues —from those devoted to earthly success to those devoted to emotional and spiritual fulfillment.

Brooks argues that relinquishing ambition doesn’t mean relinquishing aspiration . The di

See Full Page