Hidden ‘Sky Rivers’ Illustrate the Solution to Modern Problems
Anna Wilson tracks invisible rivers in the sky. She is an atmospheric scientist who wants to help people on land predict catastrophic rain. According to the BBC, atmospheric rivers can hold as much as 27 times as much water as the Mississippi River. Because they are invisible and travel underneath cloud cover, they are hard for satellites to detect. When they arrive, they end up to two-thirds of the droughts in the West Coast of the United States.
Leslie Householder teaches that invisible water vapor is like ideas, dreams and visions which might be achieved in the future. Inherent are the solutions of todays problems if we can tap into them. Water vapor forms into droplets when it cools, but in our minds, ideas form as a response to specific written goals. These goals motivate our tireless efforts to change, improve and get past obstacles.
Take Melissa Holyoak’s problem to find interesting part-time work in her legal field so she could be a mom and raise her family. She had her first child in her third year of law school with midterms looming. She asked a friend, Kari Tuft, for help knowing that her chance to finish depended on an invisible solution. With Kari’s help, she passed her exams a deep feeling of gratitude. While she admits that every woman’s journey is different, with her dream of part-time work in mind, she found a position at a law firm willing to work with her situation. Now, years later, her dreams have led to a deluge of success as she was recently selected to a coveted spot on the Federal Trade Commission. Measurable successes like Melissa’s appear at the end of a thought journey in which she maintained optimism and gratitude for all she learned along the way.
Just like invisible rivers beginning near Japan can soak a desert in Arizona, success comes to fruition after a long train of small goals have been achieved. Sometimes success is like a deluge. It busts the droughts caused by disappointment and delayed gratification. Unlike a scientist who can drop a “dropsondes” into the atmospheric river, we can’t measure the success that is coming our way and rank it on a scale of 1 to 5. Instead, we have to trust that every experience in life is part of a customized curriculum to teach us and prepare us for the future. The rhythm of life may take us closer or farther away but we focus on the end result and trust that we are always moving closer to the goal.
Sources: Sophie Hardach, “Inside the giant ‘sky rivers’ swelling with climate change” BBC 14 May 2024.
Hanna Seariac, “From the University of Utah to the national stage — one lawyer’s journey to the Federal Trade Commission” Deseret News. 13 May 2024.
