It does not.

Instead, it pulses.

There are seasons of expansion — new courses to teach, new research to complete, new responsibilities that stretch you in directions you never anticipated. Your inbox fills. Deadlines overlap. Expectations rise.

You answer emails late at night.
You reread drafts obsessively.
You question your competence.
You wonder whether you are truly as capable as everyone assumes.

And strangely, you keep going.

Then come the seasons of contraction.

Loss. Silence. Reflection.
The kind of quiet that forces you to sit with yourself.
The kind of quiet that reminds you that achievement cannot shield you from grief.

I used to resist the ebb. When things slowed down, I panicked. I interpreted calm as stagnation. I treated chaos as proof of productivity.

But I am learning something different.

Chaos reveals capacity.
Calm reveals character.

In the chaos, I discover how much I can carry. I learn that I can stand in front of a room even when my hands are shaking. I can submit the paper. I can lead the meeting. I can show up — despite rumours, despite doubts, despite my own internal critic.

There is power in that.

But in the calm, something deeper happens.

In the calm, I rediscover who I am without the titles.
Without “lecturer.”
Without “organiser.”
Without “researcher.”

Just me.

And that version matters more than I once believed.

This past year reminded me how fragile life can be. Loss has a way of clarifying what achievement cannot. It strips away illusion. It forces uncomfortable questions:

What is success if it costs you your peace?
What is endurance if you are not whole?
Who are you when the applause fades?

My grandmother used to say, “Nothing lasts forever but good salvation.” She lived in a different era — one shaped by stricter codes, formalities, and expectations that feel distant from today’s world. Yet her words remain steady. They remind me that permanence does not belong to status, noise, or recognition. It belongs to character. To faith. To the quiet interior life we build when no one is watching.

I am beginning to understand that the goal is not to eliminate the fluctuations. It is not to engineer a life without chaos or protect ourselves from every quiet season.

The goal is steadiness.

To build an internal anchor strong enough that when the tide pulls out, you do not collapse into fear.

And when it rushes in, you do not lose yourself in the noise.

Because life will ebb.
Life will flow.

The question is not whether the tide will change.

The question is whether you will remain anchored when it does.