striving

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of strive

plural strivings

1. countableuncountableEffort; the act of one who strives.

   Sexual virility, coital potency rides high and arrogant over the commercial, artistic, social strivings of contemporary society[.]

   1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page iii

   2 more examples

   Repudiating the excessive sexualism of Freud and insisting upon the importance of the food-seeking impulse, especially in childhood, he regards all the primary impulses as differentiations of one fundamental energy, the life force which sustains all our strivings, both conscious and unconscious […]

   1918, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine

   Do we really want all those strivings and contrivings—all those thoughts and assumptions someone has cleverly etched into the hardware and software we are using—to remain invisible?

   2007, Steve Talbott, Devices of the Soul, page 192