Our Founders Had Balls, Something We Desperately Lack
Our Need for Ambition (Balls) - The Drive Our Founders Had—And We Desperately Need Again
If you study our founding, from the Pilgrims to the signers of the Declaration of Independence, you’ll find this was an ambitious and gritty crew. Young and old, they possessed vision, purpose, and courage that’s hard for us to comprehend. Their obstacles were staggering: disease, death, a brutal new land—and later, the resolve to fight the most powerful empire in the world. That took grit. It took vision. It took balls, but for our purposes, we will call it ambition.
Today, that kind of ambition is vanishing. Yes, we still have ambitious people, but most often their ambition is driven by fame, fortune, and a desire for freedom from responsibility. Meanwhile, the rest of us are lulled into complacency by the Pied Piper of more leisure and entertainment, convinced that more vacations, screens, longer weekends, and shots of pleasure will bring the fulfillment we crave. We shrink from challenges and difficulty; we are trigger-happy, weak, and looking for anyone and anything we can blame for our state.
We’re not celebrating Independence Day because people in 1776 were chasing weekends, ease, and social status. We’re celebrating because a generation of men and women was on fire with purpose. Their ambition wasn’t perfect, but it was potent, and it built the freest, most opportunity-rich society the world has ever seen.
We Love the Fruit of Ambition, But Avoid the Work
We pack stadiums to watch ambitious athletes. We idolize entrepreneurs, artists, and celebrities who have poured themselves into their craft. But when it comes to our own lives? We hesitate. We want the fruit without the labor. The excellence without the effort.
But here’s the truth: Everything worth having requires ambition.
Ambition Isn’t Narcissistic, It’s Necessary
Parents, hear this: you will never become the kind of father or mother you long to be without truckloads of ambition. Parenting is one of the most sacred and demanding roles on earth, and yet, unlike our careers or hobbies, we often assume it just happens naturally. It doesn’t. It literally takes all you’ve got; a relentless intentionality that few of us are prepared for, but without which we will miss the richness available to us through our families.
If you coast through the parenting years passively or reactively, don’t expect a soft landing. As one brutally honest quote puts it:
“Parenting is like being an unpaid Uber driver for someone who doesn’t want to go to karate and hates you.”
Ouch. But without ambition to grow, lead, and love well, that caricature becomes reality. You won’t drift into becoming a great parent. It takes daily fire to fight for connection, understanding, and character in your home.
And what about becoming a more whole, grounded, and virtuous person? That, too, requires massive ambition. Healing from trauma, breaking cycles, and forming a resilient soul doesn’t come from a single moment of inspiration; it comes from daily, gritty work. The problem is we’d rather chase quick fixes than slow formation.
A Nation of Quiet Desperation
Although we are the most materially prosperous nation in history, our most vital measures of happiness and health are in collapse. We lead the world in obesity, illicit drug use, and pharmaceutical consumption. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a warning, "We are in an epidemic of loneliness at an unprecedented scale."
Thoreau’s words are more true today than when he first wrote them in 1854:
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
We’ve exchanged meaning for comfort and purpose for passivity. We’ve traded virtue for visibility, character for clout, and ambition for ease.
Redefining the Good Life
We’ve bought the lie that more money, fame, and stuff = happiness. But that formula doesn’t work. It never has. The happiest people aren’t the richest—they’re the wholest:
Spiritually grounded
Emotionally steady
Relationally rich
Vocationally fulfilled
Financially stable
Remembering Our Ambition to Learn and Listen?
In the 1850s, there were 3,000–5,000 lecture halls in the U.S. as part of the Lyceum movement. Common people—farmers, merchants, blacksmiths—would gather to hear debates and lectures on philosophy, theology, literature, and science. Why? Because they understood the good life was one that required effort, learning, growing, and investing in these kinds of activities.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1857 lasted three hours each, with one lasting seven hours. Our ancestors weren’t more intelligent—they were simply more ambitious in their pursuit of learning and growth.
Two Anchors for Ambition
1. Keep Your Family Foremost
Re-engaging with our families with an ambition to serve, to train, to connect, to create the kind of families and relationships that can only happen with focus, intentionality, and determination.
“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” — Mother Teresa
2. Pursue Virtue with the Same Fire as Success
We need to reevaluate how much energy we pour into chasing wealth compared to how much we invest in shaping our character and the content of who we are, not just how we look.
Across centuries, nearly every great thinker, whether philosopher, theologian, or Stoic, has agreed: the highest aim of the good life is virtue.
Developing virtue is no easy path. It demands grit, patience, and perseverance, qualities that don’t come naturally in a world where the next distraction is always just a click away. Whether it’s another show, another scroll, or another game, we’re constantly tempted to choose ease over effort.
Final Word
As you celebrate the Fourth, may you be stirred towards your family and towards the development of virtue, seeing that it will require your everything, but it's more than worth the sacrifice.
Our forefathers embodied it. They fought, sacrificed, and built something worth passing on.
Let’s be the kind of people who do the same, so that those who come after us inherit more than comfort, they inherit great families, great character, and the truly good life.
