All the Gold Stars
Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
From journalist and author of An Ordinary Age, an examination, dismantling, and reconstruction of ambition, where burnout is the symptom of our holiest sin: the lonely way we strive.
Ambition—the want, the hunger, the need to achieve—is woven into America’s fabric from the first colonization to capitalism. From our first gold star assignment to acceptance at the “right” college to hustle and grinding our lives, we celebrate our drive, even as we gatekeep who is permitted to strive--and how visibly. Even as we burn out. When we can’t even. When we know: work won’t love us back.
All the Gold Stars looks at how the cultural, personal, and societal expectations around ambition are driving the burnout epidemic by funneling our worth into productivity, limiting our imaginations, and pushing us further apart. Through the devastating personal narrative of her own ambition crisis, Stauffer discovers the common factors driving us all, peeling back layers of family expectations, capitalism, and self-esteem that dangerously tie up our worth in our output. Interviews with students, parents, workers, psychologists, labor organizers, and more offer a new definition of ambition and the tools to reframe our lives around true success. All the Gold Stars provides ways for us to reject our current reality and reconceive ambition as more collective, imaginative, and rooted in caring for ourselves and each other.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this mixed outing, journalist Stauffer (An Ordinary Age) examines the roots of ambition. A lifelong overachiever who sought good grades, gold stars, and praise from bosses, Stauffer burned out in her late 20s, she writes, leading her to reassess her ambition and its consequences. Productivity culture, she explains, begins as early as elementary school, when grades and standardized tests teach students their worth is found in external achievements, and children learn that good grades lead to good jobs and good lives, establishing a false link between accomplishments and economic safety. Meanwhile, in the adult world, "hustler" culture is glamorized, but it can lead to overwork and deepen inequality, as not everybody "is racing from the same starting line." The author calls for a wholesale reimagining of ambition: rather than adopting a go-it-alone attitude, readers should assign greater value to relationships and friendships, as true success can't be achieved solo. Stauffer is most convincing when she explores the intersection of ambition and injustice, as when she trenchantly critiques the ways student loans and academic tracking systems such as Advanced Placement classes reinforce racial inequalities—though she offers few concrete suggestions for systemic change. Stauffer takes on a fascinating social question, even if the answers remain elusive.
