How do we find real happiness? How do we mold our lives in a way that helps ourselves and those that we love? Are my drives, my ambitions, helping me to do my work on this planet? Or am I chasing phantoms and ideas and objects and lifestyles that ultimately don’t serve me, my loved ones, or future generations?

I was deeply entrenched within this line of questioning when a good friend emailed me an old Fast Company article which tells the magnificent story of Larry Brilliant (medical doctor, epidemiologist, technologist, activist, and author) then the CEO of SoftNet Systems Inc. and the inventor of the first, prototypical, online community—the WELL. His odyssey is summarized by one simple statement, “Every day,” Brilliant says, “I struggle with ambition. Every day, I try to understand the meaning of this line: ‘Live your life without ambition. But live as those who are ambitious.’”