Attack Mode

I have a friend who rides dirt bikes. We sat on the couch one Saturday morning watching a motocross race while he told me about his passion: the smell of sweat and gasoline at a track on a hot summer day, the thrill of finding a line and rhythm in a race, and a culture built around the idea that anyone with a bike can be the best if they’re fast enough.

My friend’s dad was his pit man during his races. When he rode past him on each lap, his dad would hold up a sign with one or two words to offer advice or encouragement. The most common reminder from his dad was simple: “Attack Mode”.

He told me how common it is for racers to get tired after forcing an unwieldy machine through ruts of churned mud. Racers can become complacent - leaning back on their bikes, riding safe, riding slow. “Attack Mode” was a reminder of what it would take to win. A reminder to lean forward, dig deeper, and approach the next lap with speed and aggression.

After hearing my friend describe it, I started considering my own posture in life. For the next several weeks, I ruminated on the image of a man leaning forward on a dirt bike, climbing up a steep incline, spraying mud in a wide arc behind him. It was attractive imagery, and I thought about how much my life might change if this was the posture I adopted. What if I attacked each day head on, viewed every interaction as an opportunity, and dug deeper to climb higher, further, and faster?

“If I lived this way” I thought, “I’d be unstoppable. I’d achieve so much more”.

This is not uncommon thinking for me. After finding myself frustrated with a seeming lack of accomplishments, I’ll come up with creative metaphors or ideas for how to become the most ambitious and successful version of myself. I go through phases where I start inhaling as much productivity content as possible, my YouTube recommendations and Instagram page becoming filled to the brim with tips for studying more effectively, waking up earlier, or getting more done in less time. Sometimes I’ll bolt out of bed late at night, suddenly feeling like I didn’t achieve enough that day, and decide that midnight is the best time to start spring cleaning.

However, I started to learn that no matter how many influential people I followed, no matter how many books I purchased on living a life of success, I looked at my life and felt a fraud. The words of Carl Jung began to haunt me: “You are what you do, not what you say you do”. I compared myself to people around me and people I saw on social media who hustled harder, who made more aggressive moves, and began to convince myself that “who I am” must be someone who is lazy, undetermined, and bored. I’d become more and more anxious as my self-perception didn’t align with the vision I thought I had for myself. For most of my life, my remedy for this anxiety was just to work harder, to put my head down and tell myself that I’d be different tomorrow.

But the truth is, I would never wake up with a suddenly renewed well of ambitious energy. My habits would not suddenly change overnight. I would never live up to the ideals of determination and productivity that I convinced myself I needed to achieve a fulfilling life. I’d never be a person who lives his life in “attack mode”.

Luckily, self acceptance is one of the greatest gifts that comes with growing older (and years of therapy). After one season of feeling particularly discouraged, I sat on a park bench with my journal to revisit the source of my motivation. I started by writing a simple question: What do I want?

I began writing out ideas or adjectives that described the type of future I envisioned for myself. Here are some of the things I wrote:

“Fresh air… lots of green… not a lot of things, but nice things… a small house, but big enough to host friends… solitude and rest so that I have energy for the people and things that deserve it most… compassion… to be with people who are comforting”.

As the vision became clearer, I realized how misdirected my determination had become. I’d been working to achieve culturally imparted dreams of wealth and status that actually meant very little to me. I began to accept that a posture of attacking life head on with aggression isn’t who I am, nor would it serve me in achieving the life I want. While I appreciate the incredibly driven people in my life who live their lives in attack mode, I want my posture to be that of Andy Dufresne, whose friend Red describes as someone who, “Doesn’t walk, but strolls… as though he had on a magical cloak that would shield him from this horrible place.” I don’t want to be someone who wrestles his future into submission, but flows through life with sense of joy and peace that could only come with being overwhelmingly present.

I recently watched an excellent video essay called “Hollywood’s Obsession with Ambition” that contrasted the stressful determination of Carmy from The Bear to the quiet, peaceful life of Hirayama from Perfect Days. I love both stories, but Perfect Days has quickly become one of my favorite movies. Hirayama, a janitor in Tokyo, spends his days cleaning toilets. The movie has little conflict, instead focusing on the day-to-day routine of a simple man that has found joy in living life mindfully and admiring its beauties in unlikely places. He works hard, but unlike most protagonists, is not striving for achievement beyond simply living a life he enjoys.

To be clear - I’m not unambitious, lazy, or non-competitive, and I’m not saying we should discard traits like determination and accept mediocrity. Of course I want my work to be worthy of promotion. I want to work to have have the body of someone who gives a damn about their health. I want those closest to me to be inspired by my resilience and ability to achieve my goals. I’d be concerned for anyone who isn’t determined to be successful in any area of their life. However, I’ve found Hirayama’s story a refreshing change of pace in a culture that romanticizes continually maximizing our achievements. It creates a space for people between “deadbeat” and “CEO mentality”, when the latter is the one primarily marketed to us as the only worthwhile outlook on life.

As I’ve learned to accept and strive towards my vision for my future, I’ve come to realize a great deal about what motivates and inspires me. I’m not hardworking because I want to have the best title, but because I take pride in a job well done. I’m not motivated to earn more money because I want to watch my bank account grow, but because I want to have the resources to be caring and generous. I don’t want to get up early to start working before everyone else, but because my soul is refreshed by feeling like I’m the only person awake in the world, when I can breathe in the frosty, dewy air of the early morning and hoard it for myself.

I’ve started to view life not as a race, but as a time trial. I’m not trying to be more successful than my neighbor, but to be more successful than I was yesterday- and that success is infrequently measured in achievements, but in ability to sit still, prioritize my friends, and grow in compassion.

I’m not someone who’s interested in looking at life like a ladder to be climbed. Instead, I want the upward momentum my life to be aligned to the natural order of things. I want my trajectory to reflect what I see around me, whose ambition matches the pace of things that grow.