There is a new cover photo on this, my blog, that I took out the window when flying to Iceland last Friday¹I also have new photos of seeing the Northern Lights. Incredible. And warm this time since I saw them from my hotel room. But there is a lesson in the current picture I want to explore.²The picture is also inserted below in case I decide to change the picture in the future.. The light is soft and almost beige, and I was reminded when I looked out the window and saw the cloud dumping what is probably sleet and rain on the earth below, that perspective is everything.

The image stuck with me through the weekend as I imagined how I would feel if I were in the picture instead of viewing the scene from a distance. 

Under the cloud, I could feel the chill flow of water down my back as I shiver and wish I had remembered my umbrella³I never remember an umbrella.. I would feel that the cloud was out to get me choosing to release its water right where I was to ruin my day. Life comes at me like this sometimes. I am sure there is a higher power raining on my parade as I attempt to transverse the road from where I am to where I want to be.

I wonder, of course, if I feel that way about the rain because I don’t live in a drought⁴Funny aside. I thought this was spelled drout. Another case where gh gets added to a word in English for no obvious reason. area. So while I love walking in the rain and I enjoy a misty day, imagining myself standing under the torrent implied in the picture is not appealing.

But what if I were standing on to the right of the picture on the tip of the land by the ocean. The wind from the storm is evident in the way the strands of rain seem to twist around each other. Instead of frustration, would I then feel fear? Would I anticipate how a sheet of sleet would make me cold, and therefore tense to receive the unpleasant sensation? Experiencing something is a different engagement than anticipating it. Both can be good, but being in the rain is different from waiting for the rain to come⁵Whether you want the rain or not.. 

On the other side of the cloud, in the back of the picture, I think I would feel the relief the cloud chose to attack someone else. From the ground, with the sun at my back, I might not even see the twists and turns rain falling from the cloud. The light would be behind me and there would be less clarity on how the rain was attacking whoever was misfortunate enough to stand beneath it. Dark and cold over there, but from where I would be sitting, I would enjoy the warmth of the sun at my back.

From the plane, it was just beautiful. And powerful. I imagined as if it were a jelly fish made of water swimming across the sky.

It was a good view from the window on a return from a very stressful week of traveling for work. One of the stresses of my new job⁶Still not pregnant. is I am now supervising⁷Sort of my former coworkers. Some days are easier than others. This week, one coworker⁸If you are reading this letter, YOU are not the coworker of which I speak. decided to show a lot of initiative. While I was on a work trip, and she was in the office. So she was having the hallway conversations with the President⁹of the organization, not of the Country that I had been having for the past few months. She was available to provide the immediate responses he needed.

My former boss, who will now be known as OldBoss, used to prevent me from having that type connection with our President because, I suppose, he felt threatened by me. Or maybe he felt I wouldn’t be able to perform the extra assignments as well as he could. Whatever the reason, everything flowed through him to me and my coworkers. I accepted this structure, even if I didn’t always like it¹⁰and maybe I didn’t follow the dictate 100% of the time, because I was comfortable in the role. It was almost too easy to just swallow any frustration I felt and go with the flow¹¹It did make me think a career change might be in order soon. But that is another Letter.. 

It turns out, I have a new perspective — both on the position I was in and the position I am in now. Now that I experienced the fear that my position was in jeopardy, I have a better understanding of the fear. I knew my first response would have been to give into that fear and try to protect my current role now that I am a boss¹²Sort of a boss. The exact relationship remains unclear.. I knew my internal reaction was not the reaction I wanted to show to the world¹³Which begs the question – so why am I blogging about this?. I never expected to another person doing good work at their job to feel like a threat to me succeeding.

It could be that I should feel threatened, but I am not going to let feeling threatened control how I act. I find it infinitely more acceptable¹⁴For my peace of mind if nothing else to observe and accept however the situation plays out. Her success does not have to be seen, by me, as my failure. It does not have to be managed as a risk to my success.

That was very hard to work through while away from home, and the image out the window of the rouge cloud, helped me gain perspective. I see clearer now that when I was the subordinate reaching for the stars, I might have been a bit annoying. But I also see that it is ok, sometimes, to stand in the sheets of sleet. It is ok, sometimes, to view it from a distance. And it is ok, always, to remember we are lucky enough to have the opportunity to let success be something we obtain as a community.