Month: January 2021

Getting Ahead And Getting By

I was a shell of myself.

My legs were tired. My lungs were straining for air. Every inch of my body was begging for a reprieve.

I could have listened. Broken it down. Called it a day.

But there was a quarter-mile left in the race. Now was not the time to give up.

And so, I accelerated. I hit that extra gear I was in no shape to handle. And I let my adrenaline do the rest.

I breezed past a couple of unsuspecting runners, hit the home stretch, and powered through the finish line.

Then I doubled over in a heap of exhaustion.

Accelerate through the wall.

This mantra describes one of my core philosophies.

As I near the finish line, I don’t slow down. Instead, I speed up.

This has been the case with just about any endeavor I’ve taken on.

In my last semester of business school, for instance, I had every reason to coast. I was beaten down from two years straight of strenuous coursework, and balancing my studies with a full-time job. Plus, it was the middle of the Texas summer, and my mind was ripe for wandering.

There wasn’t much left to go full-bore for. But I couldn’t stomach the notion of taking it down a gear. Not when there was still work to be done.

So, I gave my all to those summer classes, right up until the end. I even spent five hours pouring my heart into my last take-home exam. When I hit Submit, I was so drained that I started to shake uncontrollably.

I took a moment to get a hold of myself. Then it was on to the next challenge.

This all might sound strange. But for me, it was perfectly natural.
For I was consumed by the desire to get ahead. I was obsessed with most out of my abilities.

I’d long had grand visions for my life. I had aspirations for the growth I’d see and for the responsibilities I’d take on.

Fulfilling these visions demanded my complete attention, and it left me no room for half-measures. So, I pushed myself to the brink. Then I pushed myself some more.

It was an effective approach — until everything changed.

A global pandemic has brought scores of devastation in recent months.

Death. Joblessness. Isolation.

All have been seen and felt on a previously unfathomable scale.

Those impacts have grabbed the headlines. But the second level effects have also been significant.

One of these effects has been a persistent sense of listlessness.

As gatherings were downsized and events were canceled, the days started to blend together. The usual mile markers on our calendars had disappeared, turning life into an endless fog.

It was a challenge none of us had faced before. And we were all stuck in the quagmire together.

At first, I responded to the situation the way I always had. I kept up with any routines that weren’t neutered by lockdown orders. I steeled myself to get the most out of the dystopia I was living in. I continued to focus on getting ahead.

But it soon became clear that the pandemic was more than a sprint around the track. It was more like a 1000 mile race through the Himalayas.

Endurance would be the key attribute going forward. Survival was all that would matter.

It was difficult for me to face this truth at first. The state of the world had devoured my pathos. I would have to go against my own nature in order to meet the moment.

But I eventually eased into my new reality. A reality where I would dial it up to 8, and not to 11. A reality where I would counteract fire with ice. A reality where I would focus less on getting ahead, and more on getting by.

This shift has had quite the effect on me.

These days, I’m mellower than I used to be. I’m devoted to the here and now, and to surviving the challenges at hand. The future is so uncertain that I refuse to concern myself with it.

It’s strange for me to write these sentiments. But I’m at peace with them.

For far too long, I have sat in judgment of others.

Not because of their background or their beliefs. But because of their levels of motivation.

America has a hardscrabble heritage. A heritage that rewards a go-getter spirit. And I was fully on board with such a mandate.

I couldn’t understand those content with getting by. I couldn’t relate to those without a desire for improvement.

What a miserable existence it must be, going through life so monotonously, I thought.

But then, circumstances thrust me into that same existence. And now, I wonder if I had it wrong all along.

I used to have all kinds of assumptions about getting by. I thought it would make me lazy. I thought it would cause my skills to decline. I thought it would lead me to fail.

But it turns out, those were just my own demons. They were the fears that kept my motivational fire burning.

Those without my wild ambition maintained no connections to my demons. They weren’t slouches or afterthoughts.

If anything, they had what I didn’t. A semblance of balance. A sense of serenity.

I am ashamed I ever doubted them.

At some point, this strange era will end.

The crisis will pass. Better days will emerge. And we’ll find ourselves back in old patterns.

Those with the gumption for getting ahead will renew their quest. And those content with getting by will find themselves overlooked once again.

Our society has made it this way. It’s defined winners and losers and drawn the line between them.

But I’m not quite sure we’ve gotten it right.

For each group will see success in its own way. Those plowing ahead will get the most out of themselves. But those getting by will get the most out of life.

And here is no shame in any of that.

So, focus on getting ahead, if that strikes your fancy. Or focus on getting by, if you so desire.

Either way, you stand to see success.

On Transition

Here I go. Turn the page.

If only life were as simple as a Bob Seger song.

Yes, transitions are often-fraught times. Change is far messier than we’d like, and slogging through that quagmire can be emotionally draining.

And yet, change is inevitable. It’s a part of our calendars, our customs, and of life itself.

So, why are we not better at dealing with it? Why, after all this time, can’t we just turn the page?

The answer is both exceedingly simple and profoundly complicated.

I despise moving.

There are few things that give me more anxiety than changing my home address. I’ve only done it a handful of times in my life. Yet, each time, the experience nauseates me.

It isn’t the process of finding a new place that stresses me out. It isn’t the prospect of having a new rent or mortgage payment I must meet each month, no questions asked.

No, what upsets me most are those days right around the move itself. Those days when the home I’m vacating becomes a staging area — a labyrinth of boxes, tape, and bubble wrap.

This setup, temporary as it might be, goes against dwelling fundamentals. Homes are not meant to be storage areas for piles of boxes. They’re designed to be lived in. And the items we keep there are meant to be used, not stowed away.

Of course, it’s impossible for most of us to uproot ourselves with a snap of our fingers. Packing, lifting, unpacking — that all takes time and coordination. So, this awkward transition period is a force of circumstance.

But that doesn’t mean I like it. As I stumble through my soon-to-be-former home, looking amongst the boxes for a toothbrush and a change of clothes, I’m as miserable as a cat in a monsoon.

Perhaps someday, I won’t look on moving day with a sense of doom. Perhaps someday, I’ll even look forward to it.

But it will take a major shift to get me there.

I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.

The closing lines of William Ernest Henley’s Invictusare iconic. And for me, they’re a rallying cry.

For I am a control enthusiast. I believe in things being just so. I demand them to be just so.

I do all I can to stay at the helm. To steer my actions and emotions in the most structured of ways.

And yet, I realize that all this preparation is futile. For we live on a perpetually spinning sphere. Things are always in a state of flux. Even in areas we consider to be steady.

Consider school. Teachers, blackboards, backpacks, desks — it all dominates much of our early existence. It seems so monotonous at first, a model of routine and consistency.

And yet, school is full of transition. With every summer comes another step up the ladder, and another set of adventures and challenges. The pattern repeats itself until our schooling is done.

Our adult adventures are also warped by the forces of time. As we progress through our careers, we pick up bushels of experience. We don’t exit the workforce the same person we were when we entered.

As our own goalposts move, so do the mile markers around us. Our favorite athletes retire. Cutting-edge fashion fades into obscurity. Music genres get the dreaded vintage label.

We deftly steer through all this chaos. So deftly, in fact, that we sometimes forget such chaos is even unfolding. With so much in motion, keeping our eyes on what’s ahead becomes the mission. And such tunnel vision gives us the illusion of control.

But then comes that moment that grabs our attention. That fork in the road that we see coming a mile ahead. That transition we can’t blissfully ignore.

It might be a graduation. Or a wedding. Or the dawn of parenthood.

Heck, it might even be a move to a new home.

When we see the inflection point — when the change becomes real — we fall apart.

What’s going on here?

Well, I think there are two elements at play.

For one thing, transitions are control voids. We don’t have agency over our environment. Instead, it has agency over us.

Furthermore, transitions expose our vulnerability. They show the world the soft spots in our armor. And they rudely remind us of where those gaps lie.

A tailspin into vulnerability is our greatest nightmare, playing out in real life. No wonder transitions cause so many of us so much distress.

As I write this, we are in the midst of a great transition.

A changing of the guard at the highest office in the land.

Such a shift happens every four or eight years. And it’s always an anxious time.

But this transition feels particularly tense.

Not because it comes during a deadly pandemic or a crushing recession. But because it comes in the shadow of an insurrection.

Yes, the new President of the United States has just been inaugurated at what is effectively a crime scene. He has taken oath to defend the Constitution in the spot where rioters attempted a coup of the government just two weeks earlier. A riot that emerged in support of the outgoing President.

Such occurrences seem plucked from the pages of a dystopian novel or the streets of a far-off republic. But they have happened right here in America.

And now, in their wake, the anxiety is off the charts. The sense of vulnerability has hardly ever been greater. Dread has the brightest stage imaginable.

Yes, it seems bleak. But what if we flipped the script?

What if we approached a moment like this with hope? What if we traded guardedness for optimism? What if we believed in the good ahead of us, instead of the horror behind us?

Such thinking might seem foolhardy — reckless even — given all that’s happened. But that foolhardiness just might be what we need to thrive in this moment.

So, let us put on a brave face. Let us stand up tall. And let us face the winds of change with conviction and resolve.

Turning the page is inevitable. How we handle it up to us.

Double Edge

I was furious.

On my parents’ TV screen, I was watching the Ohio State Buckeyes celebrate wildly. Meanwhile, the Miami Hurricanes looked on, stunned.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

In fact, moments earlier, the Miami players were mobbing the field in jubilation. Fireworks were going off above the stadium. The game appeared to be over, with the Hurricanes victorious.

But then, in the midst of the celebration, a referee threw one of his yellow flags onto the field. He then proceeded to call a dubious penalty on a Miami player.

The game would continue. And Ohio State would come from behind to win the game and a national college football championship.

The result was bad enough. But the way it all went down left me in a rage.

I was 15 years old when this game took place. About 3 and a half years after the final whistle, I would attend the University of Miami and become a Hurricane for life. But as I watched Ohio State players celebrating on TV, I had no affiliation to the school they’d just vanquished. I was simply a fan of the Miami football team.

I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up. But I couldn’t help myself.

For years, I held a vendetta against The Ohio State University. I rooted against their football team in every game. When their basketball team played a road game in Miami, I jawed with Buckeye fans in the arena concourse. And, when my family drove through Columbus, Ohio — home to the Ohio State campus — I urged them not to stop the car.

Eventually, the anger subsided. But it was quickly replaced by shame.

For it turns out that Ohioans are kind-hearted, salt-of-the-earth people. I’ve worked with several over the years, and I don’t have a bad thing to say about any of them.

I was wrong to paint them as villains for so long, just because of the results of a football game. It was foolish, shortsighted — and strangely predictable.

Competition. It’s an American hallmark.

A nation built on the promise of an elected government and a capitalist economy relies on competition. On straining for scarce resources. On gaining an edge.

We compete for employment, for housing, for influence. We even compete for acclaim as the best spouse or parent.

Ostensibly, this makes us better. It keeps us motivated to give our best at all times. It inspires us to produce more. And it allows society to reap the benefits.

But hyper-competition is not foolproof. The edge we require can cut both ways.

Going head-to-head with others is a zero-sum game. There are winners and losers. Rising up means another gets pushed down.

When we’re in the fray, it’s hard to ignore this dynamic. And it’s tempting to denigrate the competition in order to swing the odds in our favor.

Some of these efforts can be mostly harmless. For example, athletes often trash talk each other to gain a psychological advantage. While this can be obnoxious, the hostilities normally don’t extend any further than that.

But other times, denigrating the competition does cross the line. It can lead to us othering our competition. It can cause us to act in racist or misogynistic ways.

Scenarios like these can cause lasting destruction. They can tear our society further and further apart. They can leave countless victims in their wake.

Scenarios like these beg the question: Is competition more destructive than good?

There’s an image that I’ve long struggled to reckon with.

It’s a portrait of Adolf Hitler as an infant.

I despise Hitler. I have always viewed him as the epitome of pure evil. Even writing his name here makes me feel squeamish.

And yet, he doesn’t look like the devil incarnate in this photo. With curiosity written on his face, he simply looks like a child.

This image is important to consider. For it reminds us that society’s greatest ills are not innate. They’re cultivated through the structures we encounter.

Hatred is a learned behavior. One forged by our experiences and our misconceptions.

And the kiln that turns us from respectable to rotten? It’s fueled by competition.

The very idea of duking it out for a limited resource — be it property, influence or accolades — is fraught with danger. For while the rules of chivalry help keep things respectable, it’s on each of us to abide by them.

Generally, such guidance is sufficient. But if desperation takes hold, or our emotions get the best of us, we toss aside good judgment. We revert to jungle law — to winning at all costs.

The dark side of competition gave rise to so many dark chapters in our planet’s recent history — the rise of the Nazis in Europe, the spread of terrorism in the Middle East, the advent of brutal drug cartels in Latin America.

But those are just the grim headlines. The real story lies under the surface.

The images of an angry mob of insurrectionists rushing the United States Capitol will always be chilling. But one image is doubly haunting.

It’s of a rioter darting through the capitol rotunda with a Confederate flag in tow.

Such a flag once flew in parts of America, after the southern states seceded and plunged the nation into a bloody Civil War. But even during those trying times, it never flew in the seat of the United States government.

Much has been made of that flag over the last 150 years or so. There are varying opinions on what it stands for, and even what to name it.

(While many have dubbed it the Confederate flag, southerners have often called it the Rebel flag.)

In my opinion, the Confederate flag symbolizes competition gone wrong. Of an error compounded by calcification of time.

You see, the southern states didn’t try and leave the union on a whim. They did so because they felt left behind.

The earliest decades of our nation were defined by two economic models — a northern one, teeming with cities and industry, and a southern one, dotted with rural plantations.

The southern economy was built on slave labor — on the bondage of Black people. The northern one was not.

Slavery and the plantation model were not invented in the south. But they became ingrained there. So even as the world evolved, white southerners found themselves irrationally attached to a system where hierarchy was determined by skin tone.

As the United States expanded westward, adding new states to the union, the South saw its influence shrink. Threatened, it responded with a stinging act of defiance — secession.

But the Confederacy was not long-lived. Barely four years later, the Civil War ended in a southern surrender.

Even so, the scars of the conflict would linger.

For in the wake of the bloodshed, white southerners were forced to compete with freed slaves for land and prosperity. The stakes were high and the resources were strained.

In the wake of such challenges, the disgraced southerners demonized their new competitors. They formed posses to kill young Black men. They set up a system of sharecropping to keep black families in poverty. And they codified segregationist policies in every state they inhabited.

Such abhorrence  — forged by competition — helped spawn an ugly legacy of racism that persists to this day.

And yet, the post-war South was not alone in this endeavor.

Indeed, as immigrants flooded to our shores and filled our cities, they were met with similar resentment. The newcomers — be they Irish, Italian, Chinese, Arab, or Mexican — faced resistance from the established, who abhorred the competition.

Xenophobia has a long shadow even in the most enlightened bastions of America. Add in the growth of the business sector and globalization in recent decades, and the issue has only intensified.

That is how we’ve gotten to where we are today. To a polarized America where millions of people support blatantly racist positions.

Building walls isn’t about making our nation more secure. Dissolving global trade isn’t about making our nation more prosperous. And typecasting people based on skin tone isn’t making our nation more equitable.

No, such actions are self-serving. They rig the competition so that those with a track record of prosperity remain victorious at all costs.

And in doing so, they threaten to eat America alive.

It’s time that we take a fresh look at competition.

It’s time that we more closely consider its limitations and moral dangers.

For while competition will continue to exist — Adam Smith’s invisible hand can’t exist without it — it doesn’t need to exist unfettered. It can’t exist unfettered.

Such introspection will not be easy. Rehashing our core principles never is.

But it’s a process that cannot wait.

For the next calamity lurks in the distance, and its underlying cause is already known.

It’s on us to do what needs to be done. It’s on us to put a sheath on the double edge of competition.

Let’s get to it.

Hidden Heroes

I was driving down Interstate 45, somewhere between Dallas and Houston. All around me, a vast Texas landscape unfolded — a cornucopia of rolling hills, thicketed trees, and pastures dotted with cattle.

But in the midst of all this scenery, something else appeared through my windshield — the back of an oil tanker.

The big rig was in my lane, and I was gaining on it quickly. I prepared to cut over to the left lane and whiz by the tanker. But, to my dismay, I noticed there was an 18-wheeler camped out in that lane. I would have to slow down and wait my turn.

I had been making good time on my journey, and I was none too happy about this temporary delay. The tanker seemed like nothing more than an inconvenience — a nuisance meant to foil those seeking to make the Dallas-Houston run in less than four hours.

As I waited for my opportunity to pass the tanker, my mind drifted.

Suddenly, I found myself a few years back in time. I was sitting in a 90-minute line at a North Texas gas station, waiting for the opportunity to refuel my SUV. It was hot out, and I was agitated.

In the midst of this misery, I saw an oil tanker pull into the fueling area. My mood shifted. My spirits soared.

I’d never taken much note of these vehicles before, even though I’d spent three years in West Texas oil country. Out in the patch, these vehicles were as pedestrian as they were unwieldy.

But now, this tanker represented the cavalry. It would save me from running out of gas. It would save all of us in this Godforsaken line.

The fact that there was a line at all was a sign of the times. Hurricane Harvey had recently devastated the Texas Coast, and its floodwaters had forced the refineries in Houston to shut down. Suddenly, something we all took for granted — an endless supply of gasoline — seemed anything but certain.

A full-on fuel panic ensued. People raced to the nearest fueling spots to top off their tanks. Gas station owners jacked up their prices. And some drivers even cut off their air conditioning in order to stretch their fuel range.

All of this was an overreaction. There were plenty of other refineries — in Louisiana and further inland — that were still up and running. There would be plenty of gasoline for everyone.

But the die had already been cast. Pandemonium had taken over, and gas stations were getting sucked dry.

In the midst of all this, the oil tankers crisscrossing the region got their star turn. The fuel in their tanks became our version of Manna from heaven. And the drivers of these rigs were our heroes.

How strange it must have been for those drivers. They surely didn’t take that role to save the world. They were just looking for a steady job with good pay. Anonymity came part and parcel with the role.

That anonymity had evaporated, thanks to a series of events outside these drivers’ control. Now, they were the center of attention.

But the moment would prove fleeting. Once things got back to normal, the tankers and their drivers would fade into the woodwork once again.

One would only have to look at me — trapped behind a tanker on the Interstate and muttering under my breath — to see how far the pendulum would swing in the other direction.

There are many things our nation struggles with. But honoring our heroes is not one of them.

We pay tribute to the brave men and women in our military at seemingly any opportunity. The days of veterans getting spat upon during their return home are long gone.

Now, military families are honored with parades and standing ovations at sporting events (in non-pandemic times). They’re rewarded with such perks as affordable housing and specialized insurance. They’re treated with the respect they deserve.

Other professions also get the hero’s welcome in times of crisis. Firefighters got critical acclaim in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Airline pilots got applauded after Sully Sullenberger landed a compromised commercial jet on the Hudson River.

Still, such goodwill does not always stick. When the lights go down and normalcy returns, the hero arc comes to an end. These professions find themselves ignored, or even antagonized.

Just look at the New York Police Department. The NYPD has had its issues over the years, and the department has been vilified in some quarters. But as the World Trade Center lay in ruins, New Yorkers softened their tune.

Officers put it all on the line, running toward the crumbling towers to save those still inside. A total of 23 NYPD officers lost their lives in the attacks that day — a toll that wasn’t lost on anyone.

Yet, the hero turn didn’t last long. As New York rebuilt from its bleakest moment, it once again cast a critical glance at those in blue. Issues of racial profiling bubbled back to the surface.

And then, in July 2014, police choked Eric Garner to death while arresting him. At the moment anger over police brutality was spiking nationwide, the NYPD found itself on the wrong side of history. Barely a decade after its brightest moment, the department faced arguably its darkest one.

The NYPD’s saga is sobering, but it’s hardly unique.

As the saying goes: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

As a deadly pandemic continues to rage, we are finding new heroes to fete.

Healthcare workers. Teachers. Delivery drivers.

The men and women in these professions have done yeoman’s work, as the virus continues to turn our lives upside down. But they’d also done yeoman’s work long before the era of masks, sanitizer, and social distancing. We just never took the time to notice.

As the son of teachers, this chasm has long been apparent to me. And while I am glad to see these professions finally get their due, I worry about what comes next.

How soon will it be before we forget? How quickly will we overlook these industries and those devoting their lives to them? How long until we’re back muttering at that slow-moving oil tanker ahead of us on the highway?

Hopefully, a real long time.

Unlike our military, teachers aren’t called to put their lives on the line. Unlike our police, healthcare workers don’t have to reckon with use of force concerns. Unlike our airline pilots, delivery drivers are not confined to invisibility when times are good.

There is no reason why our applause should stop when the danger ends. There is no reason for our adulation to come with strings attached.

So now, in this moment of sustained crisis, let us make a pledge. Let us ensure that these men and women are hidden heroes never more. Let us continue to give them the due they deserve.

We owe them that.