Paradigm Shift - a fable of a castle and riders

I miss my comrades.

There is an analogy I've mentioned to some of my colleagues. It was about a castle and the riders. The castle has inhabitants, which were different clans. Sometimes the clans were at civil war, and sometimes they were at peace. But most of the time, the inhabitants of the castle lived a happy life.

The castle is surrounded by a moat. The only access is a drawbridge. The castle is surrounded by high walls. These prevented undesired company to penetrate the castle. The drawbridge was usually up.

The castle is surrounded by harsh land. There will always be people roaming around the castle, toughened by the harshness, and always longing to be in the castle, the happy life beckoning. These are the riders. They were my comrades.

I work for a specific sector within my company. There was a period where there was a low morale amongst the staff, it was about 3-4 back. We lost a lot of good team members, and there were factions within the larger projects. During that time, I always felt I worked pretty much alone and in the toughest circumstances, never enjoying hunting in a team for new sales or execution of new projects. It had always been me and a very young team and scattered support from comrades who were in similar predicament, those not in the large projects.

I had a few comrades. We were the riders.

I rode outside the castle for the longest time. There were three of us. We lost the first comrade when he left. I had only one other rider left, we complemented each other in our hunts and never envied the castle inhabitants. Then he too left, and I was alone. I outlasted all the riders.

In time, I was recognised for my ability to tackle the surroundings, and I was allowed into the castle, but I chose my path outside. Along the way, I brought out new riders, and young riders. Some lasted, whilst some did not. Some were trapped in the forest, not even able to ride freely close to the castle.

Cryptic? The moral of the story - I thrive on solo flying. But this is not a sustainable function. I am very tired of riding outside the castle and today, I was thrilled to see some of my fellow comrades, my ex-colleagues again, and indeed they had a successful career after they left - I was very happy for them.

I thrive in difficult environments but I cannot last forever. In analogy, one cannot ride alone and battle the harshness at one go. The inside life is always happier, but the outside life has the freedom and challenges. The right thing to do is to find the right team to ride together and change my paradigm. Riding outside is good, staying trapped in the castle is not real.

In a paradigm shift environment, it is not the view but the eyes of the viewer which matters the most. And the paradigm shift means I need to convince more to join me as riders instead of wanting to join the others in the castle.

Maybe I can then stop missing my comrades.