Things that make me go "Hmmm?"

Let me preface this blog post by saying that most everything I find myself venting about (translated: whining about) now sounds like a first - world problem.  But stick with me and call it as you see it.  
I travel a good bit to the east coast for work.  What that means is, as someone who lives in Arizona, I have to get up extremely early.  As my former priest in the Episcopal Church used to say, "Nothing good happens between 1:00 and 4:00 in the morning."  You got that right, Father!  At the top of the list of "nothing good happens" is getting out of bed at 3:30 in the morning when our normally boundless bundles of energy (aka our 3 Labs) are openly snoring under the covers.  But I love what I do (not the getting up before the Dunkin' Donuts guy even thinks about doughnuts, but the educational consulting), so I do it with a smile (maybe it resembles a grimace, but what would you know?  No other sane person is up at that time of the morning to see it).  

From Tucson, I typically have to "hop" through L.A., Denver, or Houston to get to the Northeast.  Today was an L.A. kind of morning.  I got to L.A. at 7:30 and my next flight to Baltimore was scheduled to leave at 9:00.  "Scheduled to leave...." is the operative phrase.  Well, technically, we did leave.....the gate.....to sit on the tarmac for one hour.  (are you already shouting "This is a first world problem, Shelly, especially since you are sitting in first-class watching an episode of 'The Walking Dead'"?)

Okay, but here is the reason we sat on said tarmac for one hour.

Pilot:  "Folks, this is your captain speaking from the flightdeck.  We are going to pull over and park for a few minutes because we just received word that there is a line of thunderstorms in Baltimore passing through and they want us to wait a bit before taking off."  

Hmmmmmm...... (thus, the name of the blog post).....last time I checked Googlemaps (and trust me,  I do it all the time to find out where the nearest place is to my hotel that I can get a fountain diet coke), L.A. is across the country....literally five hours away....from Baltimore.  Isn't there a chance that little line of storms might pass before we fly clear across the continental U.S??

But, as I sat there, incredulous, I thought to myself, "Shelly, you need to seek first to understand.  They actually fly a bit more than you do.  They may know a few things you do not about how air traffic may be affected if we take off now." 

This whole notion of seeking first to understand is such a critical piece in communication.  We might likely want to seek first to understand before jumping to conclusions in any communication scenario, lest we find ourselves overlooking a perfectly good reason for something.  

Just for today, perhaps we should consider practicing "seeking first to understand".  Now, I am going to go pack an umbrella for the thunderstorm that passed through an hour ago.