Take a Ladder to the Moon

We all grew up with it.

The poster-worthy line, scrawled in script fonts on classroom walls and guidance counselor bulletin boards:

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

It was supposed to be inspiring.

But to me, it always sounded… wrong.

It didn’t feel like ambition.

It felt like settling dressed up as a pep talk.

Because in my family, the message didn’t come paired with a vision board or a roadmap. It came filtered through a quieter, heavier expectation: Don’t be picky. Don’t be greedy. Take what you can get.

When I heard “shoot for the moon,” what actually landed was:

We’re telling you to dream, but we’d prefer you aim for something reasonable.

I hated it.

Little me would huff in my room, arms crossed, quietly thinking, But I want the moon.

The Softball Diamond and the Stage I Never Took

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actress. The idea had lodged itself in my brain like a glittery seed, fed by movies and the intoxicating thought of stepping into other worlds.

So one day, I told my mom.

She asked if I wanted to take theatre classes.

I said no.

Not because I didn’t want to — but because I didn’t know that’s what you were supposed to do. No one explained the path. And when I didn’t take the step, my mom didn’t push.

It was easier, I think, to keep me on the same track as my sibling.

So instead of theatre, I played softball.

I became a pitcher.

I found my “star moment” standing alone on that humid Houston diamond, attempting a curveball like the game depended on it.

And while it was exhilarating, it wasn’t the moon. It was something I’d learned to treat like the moon.

Who Benefits From “Settle”?

It’s taken me years to realize that “Shoot for the moon” — at least the way I absorbed it — was never meant to make me aim higher.

It was meant to make me feel okay about lowering my aim.

Because here’s the truth: “settling” is often sold to us as wisdom. A kind of pragmatic maturity. But in reality, it’s a form of social crowd control.

If you can convince enough people that “good enough” is noble, then the system stays stable.

The hierarchy remains intact.

Ambition becomes something we’re encouraged to manage, not ignite.

When you’re told to shoot for the moon but handed a slingshot instead of a rocket, you start making peace with the idea that close enough counts.

You accept the ceiling over your head because the people above you call it “the sky.”

The thing is, settling doesn’t just protect the system — it protects the people already at the top of it.

It keeps power in its familiar places.

It rewards compliance and labels anything beyond that as greed, arrogance, or recklessness.

Which makes me wonder: how many of our inherited “inspirations” are really just rehearsed ways of keeping us in line?

The Minister Who Gave Us the Moon

Like a lot of quotes that make their way onto mugs and motivational posters, “Shoot for the moon…” didn’t just appear out of thin air. It came from a man named Norman Vincent Peale, born in 1898 in Ohio, ordained as a Methodist minister, and later a towering figure in the world of positive thinking.

Peale wasn’t a fringe personality. He was an establishment man — a charismatic preacher who packed the pews at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City and made the leap from pulpit to mass media. He was part of the machinery that shaped the American self-help gospel: believe big, expect big, and big things will come.

But history has a way of complicating the slogans we inherit.

In the early 1940s, Peale became associated with the “America First” movement — an organization that opposed U.S. involvement in World War II. Decades later, the phrase would be resurrected by Donald Trump, a man whose family, it turns out, had a long-standing connection to Peale. Fred Trump, Sr., father of the future president, was an admirer and personal friend. Donald Trump would later call Peale “the greatest guy” and claim he attended his sermons for years.

😬.

Peale’s “shoot for the moon” optimism was never politically neutral. It existed in the same breath as his belief in a businesslike Christianity — one that valued self-confidence and personal advancement, but didn’t exactly challenge the hierarchies of power.

When you know that history, the quote takes on a different shape.

It stops sounding like an open invitation to dream, and starts sounding like a framework for ambition that stays politely within its assigned lane.

The Ladder to the Moon

The older I get, the more I think the problem isn’t just the quote — it’s the way it’s built.

“Shoot for the moon” assumes we’re meant to launch ourselves at our dreams like a human cannonball, hoping momentum will be enough to get us there.

But what happens when you run out of fuel midair?

When you don’t land among the stars, but flat on your back?

For me, the alternative isn’t to give up the moon.

It’s to build a ladder.

A ladder isn’t as flashy as a cannon. It doesn’t get the Hollywood montage. It’s slow, deliberate, and often built with whatever materials you can find. You can climb it alone or with help. You can pause to catch your breath and still be making progress.

A ladder to the moon means you’re allowed to keep your sights set high without pretending you’ll get there in one heroic leap.

It means ambition isn’t a gamble — it’s a construction project.

And maybe that’s the part the quote misses: getting somewhere worth going often requires the opposite of a blind launch. It requires patience. Endurance. And the willingness to keep adding rungs, even when you can’t yet see the view from the top.

Claiming the Moon on Your Terms

When I think back to that little girl — the one huffing in her room, muttering I want the moon under her breath — I wish I could tell her she wasn’t wrong.

I’d tell her the moon isn’t too much to want.

That she doesn’t have to accept the ceiling just because someone else calls it the sky.

That she doesn’t need permission to climb.

And I’d tell her this: the people who say take what you can get are often just trying to keep you from noticing how much more is possible.

For a long time, I mistook “settling” for wisdom. I learned to make peace with half-steps and almosts. I built my own ceilings, just to feel safe under them. But somewhere along the way, I realized safety isn’t the same as fulfillment.

The moon you’re reaching for might not be the one they’d choose for you.

It might be strange or inconvenient or too bright for the people who prefer the dark.

That’s fine. It’s not their ladder.

So keep building.

Even if it’s slow.

Even if it’s lonely sometimes.

Even if your rungs are uneven and your hands splintered from the work.

Because one day, you’ll look down and realize you’re standing on something you built — rung by rung, step by step — and you’re closer to the moon than anyone thought you’d be.

And when you get there, you won’t have arrived because you took a shot and got lucky.

You’ll have arrived because you refused to aim lower.

Because you didn’t just want the moon.

You made a way to reach it.