"The most important thing to strive for in life is some kind of personal and professional achievement. Not as a man or a woman, but as a person"
About this Quote
The intent is aspirational, but the subtext is defensive in a familiar late-20th-century way: if the world insists on sorting your ambitions into gendered boxes, you can try to outflank the sorting by claiming a more universal category. That move has bite coming from Bushnell, whose work turned the private negotiations of sex, status, and money into public conversation. She’s speaking from a culture that often treats women’s professional striving as either suspect (“cold,” “unfeminine”) or quaint (“having it all”), while men’s striving gets to remain unmarked.
What makes the line work is its pivot from identity to achievement without pretending the identity pressures don’t exist. “Personal and professional” suggests a life where success is not just a resume but a self, yet she avoids the empowerment-poster mush by naming the real enemy: being reduced. It’s a compact manifesto for refusing to be a demographic first and a human second, even when the market, the workplace, and the dating pool keep demanding your category.
Quote Details
| Topic | Success |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Bushnell, Candace. (2026, January 17). The most important thing to strive for in life is some kind of personal and professional achievement. Not as a man or a woman, but as a person. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-most-important-thing-to-strive-for-in-life-is-45699/
Chicago Style
Bushnell, Candace. "The most important thing to strive for in life is some kind of personal and professional achievement. Not as a man or a woman, but as a person." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-most-important-thing-to-strive-for-in-life-is-45699/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The most important thing to strive for in life is some kind of personal and professional achievement. Not as a man or a woman, but as a person." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-most-important-thing-to-strive-for-in-life-is-45699/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026.









