The former editor of Grazia Australia has caused a social media storm following an unrelentingly honest op-ed piece in Britain’s tabloid Daily Mail, lamenting the difficult position she finds herself in for being too successful and driven.
In the piece titled A book deal at 23. A stellar career. An enviable lifestyle. But AMY MOLLOY says: ‘Being a success is lonely and so joyless. I wish I was mediocre like my friends‘, Molloy writes about the difficulties she’s experienced from being ambitious. She writes how “overachieving” and constantly striving for more success means she’s found it hard to make friends, have a social life, and find satisfaction in her work.
Molloy begins the piece by describing a “mediocre” friend who envies her career and drive, and then writes: “But the truth is I envy her failure. It’s hard being a lonely and joyless high-achiever. I wish I could be mediocre.”
Molloy is unflinchingly honest about what she perceives as the downsides of being singularly focused on her career: “Being successful is torturous. It’s isolating — you lose weekends, holidays and (if you’re not careful) your social life,” she writes.
“It may sound like everything I touch turns to gold, but I’ve had many failures. I have probably missed 90% of all the targets I have set for myself.”
It’s easy to dismiss someone who would willingly pen a missive that contains the sentence “I earn more money than I need”, but could Molloy’s honesty merely reflect the experience of some other highly successful women who are constantly striving for perfection?
Having focused her life on ticking off her career aspirations, Molloy has inextricably linked her happiness to career success. Her piece suggests an inability to celebrate smaller, and less distinctive levels of success.
Molloy, who was at the helm of Grazia magazine when it folded earlier this year, writes that while her staff were off drowning their sorrows after receiving their red slips, she went for a jog and diligently planned her next course of action.
When you spend your life working for a strict and upward career trajectory, it’s not difficult to imagine why you might be overcome by anxiety when you suddenly find yourself out of a job.
There are plenty of successful women who are driven by their careers and a desire to succeed. There are also plenty of women who fear failure and are driven to success by this fear.
The reality is that because women are still having to apologise for their success – TIME magazine famously featured Sheryl Sandberg on its cover earlier this year with a line urging the public not to hate her “for being successful” – there’s often not a lot of scope to talk of the downsides of ambition.
Women are breaking down ingrained barriers in the workplace. But there’s still an expectation that while success is worth celebrating, those who speak too loudly and openly about being ambitious and wanting more than they already have should be derided.
Earlier this week Cherie Blair lamented that society still isn’t comfortable with successful women in the workplace. Perhaps society’s also not ready to discuss the idea that women are not always satisfied with success.