Made In The Shade
My friend Karan has been on vacation and spending a lot of time sitting on a beach in some southern resort area. She’d been posting photos of the ocean and the typical beach resort images, but today she captured one that is a visual philosophy lesson. Take a look at the featured image of this post and take note of where the beach umbrella has been thrust into the sand, and then take a look at where the shade from that umbrella falls.
The family obviously brought the umbrella to the beach to provide some cool shade and respite from the tropical sun. When they originally setup the umbrella they were probably sitting directly beneath it and were well hidden from the fireball in the sky.
Made In The Shade
You’ve probably experienced something similar at work or at home:
- Something in your life wasn’t ideal
- You took action to change it
- You successfully improved your situation
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
The world keeps spinning
All of a sudden, the soothing shade isn’t where it used to be!
Your umbrella was working just fine 30-minutes ago. You were perfectly centered in your shade-bubble and you certainly didn’t move. The sun is still just a big ball in the sky. What happened?
It wasn’t anything you did. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t equipment failure. It wasn’t a malevolent external force seeking vengeance against you. It was just the fact that the world keeps spinning. It rotates on its axis (oh-so-slooooowly) yet it causes change to our environment is subtle shifts of landscape.
Sudden your shade isn’t yours anymore.
You don’t have to take it sitting down
These folks didn’t.
The didn’t didn’t stay still and hope that everything “goes back to normal”. They didn’t complain that shifts in the shade weren’t fair. They didn’t sue the umbrella company for manufacturing a defective product. They simply looked around their surroundings, took note of the new status of the shade situation — and took new action to solve the problem.
You may have made changes to correct a problem in the past, and then the problem reoccurred and it was like the first attempt was never made. You could complain about it and shake your fist at the sky, or you could take additional actions that will return you to your happy made-in-the-shade status.
