It was Labour Day on May 1. A day rooted in the fight for workers’ rights, for fairness, for limits and for dignity built into the way we work. It began in struggle: collective action against impossible hours, unsafe conditions, and being treated as if output were the only measure of value. At its heart, Labour Day is about the courage to say: this isn’t sustainable. We deserve better.
It was also my birthday.
And this year, that overlap carried more weight than usual. It’s the first birthday since my brush with breast cancer. This, I know, is a recurring theme in how I think, how I write, how I live. Maybe because it’s still new. Definitely because it changed everything: not just my body, but how I see time, how I measure progress, what I ask from the world, and what I allow myself to expect from myself.
For the past 20 years of my career, I have given free rein to my ambition. I have wanted to achieve exceptional things. So I’ve pushed harder, stayed later, showed up louder. I’ve exceeded every bar placed in front of me. I’ve wanted to grow and to prove something, to myself as much as to others. And I was proud of what I accomplished, even when it hollowed out entire parts of my life.
Then came the diagnosis and my mastectomy. And the emotional unravelling that followed. Overnight, the version of me who had prized output and resilience above all else faded out. She was someone who hadn’t yet learned what it means to have your body edited, your sense of time disrupted and your mortality pushed to the front and centre.
The version of me today? I remain ambitious. But what I’m ambitious for has changed. I’m ambitious for peace. For work that feels purposeful, not consuming. For work that is aligned, not extracted.
And isn’t it strange, or maybe not, that the same year cancer came, so did a new job. A different environment. One where I could begin to be well again. Where my contributions were received with care. Where my labour felt seen, not stretched thin.
I’m ambitious for one more birthday.
I’m ambitious for every birthday.
And I’m ambitious to create something, something shaped not by the old standards of output, but by a new standard: one with less urgency and more life. Something that begins with presence, is built on purpose, and leaves room for breath. When you finally understand what you can no longer afford to ignore, or defer, or survive quietly. When you realise that value is not measured by deliverables alone, but by alignment, by meaning, by peace.
The people who protested for the rights of workers so many years ago weren’t asking for less ambition. They wanted a life that could hold both ambition and care. And that’s the version of ambition I’m working on now.
Azza Mubarak Matar
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