Loyalty: The Tie That Binds (and Strangles)

One of my loyal readers, in a comment stated, “Genuine loyalty is moral clarity wrapped in care,” in response to a recent blog. And opened a Pandora’s Box – loyalty - that quaint little word we like to dress up in Sunday clothes, pretending it’s still shiny, noble, and worth something in a world addicted to the next big thing or the next magnificent person. I used to think loyalty was invisible, hidden quietly in gestures and choices. But no—actions out you every time. Actions don’t lie. Wear the tie with the university crest, and suddenly you’re branded: “company man.” I heard that more than once when I was chairing my department. And yes, guilty as charged. Because loyalty to an institution, to a person, to a relationship, actually meant something to me. Imagine that—choosing predictability over chaos, constancy over the sugar rush of novelty. What an old-fashioned fool. The truth is: loyalty has a price. It demands sacrifice. It demands compromise. It demands giving up some dreams, shelving some temptations, and choosing to stay when walking away might look like the best escape. Those who leapfrog from one job, one partner, one institution to another cloak it in words like “growth,” “opportunity,” “adventure,” even “escape from suffocation.” Let’s be real—it’s often just disloyalty with better PR. You leave stability because stability feels suffocating, and then you go chasing instability, which surprisingly turns out to be equally stifling. But hey, at least it looks new. Loyalty, though, builds ecosystems. It’s the invisible scaffolding that lets people trust each other enough to get through the day. The department that runs smoothly. The partner who knows you’ll actually show up tomorrow. The friend who doesn’t wonder if you’ll ghost them when something shinier comes along. Loyalty doesn’t sparkle, but it sustains. And sustenance is underrated until the system cracks, and you realize how expensive disloyalty really is. And here’s the delicious irony: the disloyal one, who swaggers into the new setup, carries baggage stamped in fluorescent letters: unreliable. Because the new crowd knows the story too. They smile at you, shake your hand, and nod at your fresh ideas, while reminding themselves, “Watch your back, buddy. This one jump ship.” The history of betrayal becomes the future of suspicion. One may have thought that this was reinvention, but all it does is stapling past disloyalty to a nametag. So yes, be loyal. Not because it makes you virtuous, but because it makes you predictable. And in a world where everyone’s one swipe away from their next “true calling,” predictability is the rarest luxury. If you want to live forever glancing over your shoulder, go ahead—be disloyal, test every “opportunity,” collect every shiny badge of reinvention. Just don’t be surprised when the same game is played on you. I still have my black and gold tie, and I have the offer letters from other universities tucked away in the attic. To me, it was more important to give back to the system that gave me so much, perhaps not as much as the others might have promised. But I would choose what is tested and known, even if not ideal, than chase some illusions. In that pursuit what is lost is the promise that could be relied on, “Lean on me, when you're not strong/And I'll be your friend,” because suddenly there is a vacuum and as Bill Withers promise “Somebody to lean on” vanishes.