What goes up must come down.
These words caught me off guard.
Sure, I’d heard them before. They were a favorite saying of my father on family road trips.
But I wasn’t in the car this time. I was in my college meteorology class. And my professor was the one conveying these words.
The professor was introducing the concept of convective weather. An abstraction that he sought to make reality in our minds.
About 10 miles to the west of the classroom, the professor explained, moisture would rise from the swamps of the Florida Everglades. Those vapors would cool as they rose, turning into thick clouds as they collided with the stratosphere.
Those clouds would drift out toward the coast until they got too heavy. Then they’d dump down rain — usually right onto the university campus during the mid-afternoon.
What went up had indeed come down. And this scientific illustration left an indelible impression.
I thought about all the times I showed up to class drenched to the bone. I thought of all those times when black clouds suddenly sent me scurrying from the beach.
Convection might have been a force of nature. But I was not a fan of it.
Career pathing.
It’s a concept that’s gained steam in the corporate world of late.
Gone are the days of keeping workers in stable, specialized roles for decades. These days, companies focus on elevating employees through the ranks.
At first glance, there would seem to be much to like about this. Employees can attain loftier titles, more responsibilities, and bigger paychecks. Companies can retain highly motivated workers, who might prove more efficient in managerial roles than outside hires.
But make no mistake. Career pathing is no panacea.
There is only so much room at the top, and providing an escalator to that rarefied air does nothing to relieve the pressure.
There are only two ways to make space — add layers to the organizational chart or cut ties with existing managers. One method exacerbates the core issue at hand. The other punctuates it.
We might enjoy the promise of time in the sun, boosted by career pathing and a culture of upward mobility. But the fall will eventually come for us, just as it did those we displaced during our rise. And when that drop arrives, it will be precipitous.
These are the laws of a convective system. What goes up must come down.
My roots are American.
This is the answer I always give when people ask me about my background.
Others may rally around strains of lineage. Irish, Italian, Mexican, and so on. But not me.
I was born here, and I was raised here. So were my parents and three of my grandparents. Shouldn’t that be enough?
Maybe not.
None of us are really from America. Our ancestors all emigrated from somewhere. And whether they crossed the Bering Strait 10,000 years ago, crossed the Atlantic Ocean by boat 100 years ago, or crossed the Rio Grande a decade back — well, those ancestors were likely not all that well off when they arrived.
My lineage reflects this well. Most of it spreads across the hilly terrain of Eastern Europe. Yet, it converges here in America. Not by luxury, but by necessity.
Consider the ancestral string that carries my surname.
My ancestors from that strand came to America four generations ago. I don’t know much about what brought them here. But I do know that in the 1910s, my great grandfather was growing up in a single parent household. His mother would sell goods along the beach, skirting permitting laws to make ends meet.
My great grandfather eventually found a more stable income by operating his own corner grocery store. My grandfather improved his stature even further, becoming a family doctor.
These days, my father is a teacher at a prestigious private school. And my uncle is a renowned surgeon who heads a department at a major American hospital.
My family has certainly followed the convective pattern, rising in prominence with each generation. This feat is laudable, if not entirely noteworthy.
Indeed, plenty of families have risen through the ranks the way mine did. The convective route to acclaim is so commonplace that it’s become a staple of American culture.
That is one reason why I’m unapologetic about claiming my roots as American.
But this gravy train must end sometime. At some point, a generation of my family will hit the stratosphere. Upward mobility will be quashed. And things will start going in the other direction.
What goes up must come down. But when?
Will this reckoning happen to my generation? The next one? The one after that?
I have no idea.
What I do know is I’ve got a clean slate. My parents allowed me to pursue a career of my choosing, free of prejudice. And I’ve been successful in that pursuit.
Still, my exploits have brought me precious little inner peace.
I often ask myself if I should be going after more in my profession. I often ask myself if I’m in the right profession.
I wonder if I’m adequately contributing to the convective process that’s brought my family to the fore. I wonder if I’m doing enough to sustain the rise and stave off the downfall.
But I could be chasing after the wrong questions.
What’s next?
I asked myself this openly, as I prepared to vacate a volunteer leadership role.
I had been president of my alma mater’s local alumni chapter for four years. And I had served as vice president for two years before that.
Now, my time at the helm had come to an end. And I was readying myself for the next challenge.
I thought through my options for my next step. Other volunteer organizations to devote my time to. Other rungs of involvement within alumni leadership. Other activities to get acquainted with.
These were the ways I could keep rising, keep contributing, keep demonstrating prominence. The convective system of influence demanded I choose one.
But I didn’t want to.
I was tired. Tired of sacrificing my time and energy at volunteer leadership pursuits. Tired of leaning deeper into that sacrifice with each passing year.
I didn’t want to keep rocketing up to the Teflon ceiling of the stratosphere. I was just fine floating along in the mid-levels. Not getting stepped on, but not getting knocked down either.
I wanted to break the cycle. So, I did.
I replaced my volunteer leadership role with…nothing. And in the process, I found a semblance of inner peace.
My decision in this area is far from noteworthy. But it is illustrative.
It shows that the convective system — the escalator to the top — is not the prerequisite to success.
Those who want to keep defying gravity have full license to do so. Our societal systems make that abundantly clear.
But not everyone wants that.
Indeed, a great many likely prefer a less turbulent journey. They yearn to get to a comfortable cruising altitude and level off the plane. But they don’t recognize that such a path is possible.
Let’s change that.
It’s high time we evangelize that gentler path. That we normalize an alternative to the never-ending climb. That we blaze a trail to a more sustainable future.
What goes up doesn’t have to come down. Let’s make it so.