The Peter Principle : The Art of Being promoted into Oblivion

The Peter Principle

A Peter Principle Reflection

They say we rise until we break.

Not by grand design, nor malicious hand

but by a thousand tiny nods of approval,

by promotions mistaken for victories,

by a system rewards what is easy to see

over what is essential to know.

The Peter Principle

the quiet, almost polite tragedy

of being elevated to a rung too high.

To a place where competence becomes a memory,

and daily life feels like treading water

with shoes made of stone.

We mistake potential for permeance.

We assume yesterday's excellence

will alchemize into tomorrow's mastery.

But sometimes the ladder leans against the wrong wall,

and the higher we climb,

the further we drift from the terrain we once knew by heart.

The tragedy isn't in the failing,

failure, after all, is a teacher.

The tragedy is in the forgetting:

forgetting what made us thrive,

forgetting the ground where our talents first bloomed.

It is a gentle reminder,

folded into the paper architecture of ambition:

to know the difference between growth and distortion,

to cherish the spaces where we are lithe,

not lost.

Sometimes the truest wisdom

is learning when to stay still,

rooted,

vibrant,

enough.

Chimera's First