The other day, I was talking with our son, William, who’s a junior in high school. He’s starting to think about where he might want to go to college, and all the questions that come with that.

At one point in our conversation, we started talking about how having an identity rooted in love might change the way he approaches the college application process. I asked, “Isn’t it freeing that you don’t have to get into X, Y, or Z in order to be okay?”

He said, “It’s freeing. But it’s also motivating because I can go for X, Y, and Z. And if I don’t get in, I’m still okay.”

That caught me off guard. I’d been thinking about how freeing it would be to step off the treadmill of achievement—to believe you’re okay, even if you don’t get into the top schools or hit all the milestones our culture tells you are necessary for success. But William reminded me that when you know you’re already loved, already enough, you’re actually freed up to pursue those goals, but not because you need them to prove something.

Striving for Excellence, not Superiority

It’s a different kind of striving—striving for excellence, not superiority. And it comes from a place of rest, not fear.

In many ways, our daughter Penny, who has Down syndrome, shows us what that kind of life can look like. She doesn’t strive in the same way the rest of us do. She doesn’t measure her worth—or anyone else’s—by success or comparison. She simply lives in the goodness of who she is. And that has become an invitation to the rest of us—to step back, to notice, to wonder if maybe we don’t have to prove ourselves all the time either.

It’s made me think about how this culture of comparison and competition distorts our understanding of ourselves—and of others. When our worth depends on being better, faster, smarter, or more accomplished, we’re never quite enough. There’s always someone else to measure against. And that constant striving can be exhausting.

But what if we believed we were already enough?

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That doesn’t mean we stop growing or working hard or dreaming big. As theologian Miroslav Volf has said, there’s nothing wrong with striving toward what’s good and meaningful. The problem comes when we strive from a place of fear or scarcity—when we think we have to be better than someone else in order to be okay.

What I’m learning, slowly and imperfectly, is that we are invited to live from a place of abundance. Of love. Of belonging. And from there, everything changes.

The Cost of Ambition

Miroslav joined me on the podcast to talk about his latest book, The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse. We explore:

• The dark side of competition
• Striving for excellence vs. striving for superiority
• The illusion of individual achievement
• Practices for embracing love and generosity

What happens in a community where everyone is trying to be better than each other? And what happens when we stop striving for superiority? Here are some insights from Miroslav:

The Cost of Constant Comparison

“You don’t have sufficient capital of self-love to extend the hand of friendship.” —MV

When we’re always measuring ourselves against others, we lose our capacity for generosity, joy, and connection. We stop supporting others. We struggle to celebrate their success. We see life as a competition—where someone must lose for us to win.

The Loneliness Behind the “Self-Made” Myth

“There are a lot of people that have genuine merit, but the problem then becomes when they ascribe the entirety of their merit to themselves.”—MV

As a professor at Yale, Miroslav says he’d credit maybe 2% of his success to himself. We’re shaped by parents, mentors, and communities. The myth of being “self-made” isolates us.

A World of Abundance

“We are garbaging the world… using it to shore up our fragile self.” —MV

We “garbage the world” and fail to recognize and experience true abundance when we only value what gives us a sense of being better than others. Instead of striving for more achievements and possessions to bolster our identity, Miroslav invites us to nurture the “spirituality of appreciation… to long for what we have.” He says: “I can breathe the fresh air freely and be who I am… It’s almost paradise when we give up on striving for superiority.”

I hope you’ll listen (or watch), and then share this episode with a friend. How do you distinguish between striving for excellence and striving for superiority in your own life or in your children’s lives? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

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