Tall Poppy Syndrome

Tall Poppy Syndrome spreads in offices and homes the way colds spread in a sleeper coach — quietly, and almost everyone catches it.

It is not an illness, and there is no injection for it. The treatment is older and slower: honest priorities, kept daily, in the presence of people who will tell you the truth.

At the cremation ground, every speech is honest and every ambition sounds smaller. Then the bus takes everyone back to the city, and by Tuesday the lesson is negotiable again.

In the end, life asks only whether we were awake while it happened. The idea has done its job if, the next time it happens to you, you smile before you react.