We’ve Arrived Syndrome

Call it a syndrome and people pay attention. Call it a habit and they yawn. We’ve Arrived Syndrome deserves the attention.

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. Tomorrow will provide the test. It always does.