The beauty of travel for a planner like myself is that the best laid plans can so easily be foiled for absolutely no reason. On paper, things look flawless and timely, just waiting to be riddled with an unexpected storm in Budapest to throw off your flight 10,000 miles away or the little bulb the size of a nightlight above the galley goes on the fritz. SIDE NOTE- that was a real thing that happened, we had to wait over 2 hours for it to be fixed. That’s like the equivalent of your car window not rolling down – inconvenient yes, but you can still function, in my opinion…which is probably why I am getting zero job offers from airline mechanic companies.
Like the true over-committer that I am, there was the opportunity to meet family and friends for a couple days for a quick trip before heading to Jacksonville, Florida for a work event. I had planned accordingly, making sure I could take the last flight out, sleep a minimum amount of hours to function as a pseudo-normal adult and make it to my event on time. The Delta Sky gods had a different plan. A reason unbeknownst to anyone, our flight was delayed and delayed and essentially ended up getting me stuck in Atlanta after 1am and no chance of getting to Jacksonville in time for my main reason for traveling there. I went to bed exhausted, knowing I had a mere 4 hours until I had to be back at the airport. Disappointed that I had failed to plan for a failed plan, I went to bed annoyed at myself and tired.
VERY early the next morning, I plopped down in Seat 15E, next to a man in pilot attire, who I assumed was either going or coming to work. Turns out he had just come off of a 9 hour flight from Honolulu and was commuting home to Jacksonville. While making small talk, I asked him if he preferred flying the plane to riding and he confirmed it was absolutely torture for him to be a passenger. He said even when he and his family will travel, flying is his least favorite means because it is such an adjustment to ride. He made a comment that struck me beyond its obvious meaning
“For us pilots, when our families want to go on vacation, we just want more than anything to be home. We go and go and go and sometimes it is just nice to be.”
I don’t know what it was about the way he said it but it immediately made me think about the way we, as a culture, live. Sometimes, we are trying to “vacation” through life, living for the next “big thing” to happen. Someone wiser than I said “Happiness is not a destination” so by looking for these next destinations, like babies, marriage, graduation, new jobs, we are missing out on the joys of being “home” – comfortable where we are and who we are and relaxing in the ease of that. There is huge accomplishment and pleasure in those big destinations and I am not saying there is anything bad about being jazzed or wanting that stuff. I do too! It is just that sometimes, we spend so much time rushing to “the next stop” and being perpetually busy and miss the simple things that fill us up as we hurry through life. I am guilty of this more than I like to admit. For a planner like me, it is hard to not want an itinerary, timeline or general idea of when and how things are going to happen. Or worse, plan it out and be disappointed when it doesn’t pan out how “it should be”. Which SIDE NOTE #2 – I paid to learn this learn this lesson, so consider this my free piece of advice for you today – take the word “should” out of your vocabulary, it will save you a lot of unnecessary anxiety and disappointment – thanks Stephanie for that tidbit.
But just like a travel delay, when there is that pause, rather than stressing about getting to your next stop, enjoy what you’ve been given. With airport delays, you might get a chance to call a friend you have been playing phone tag with or start that book you haven’t had a chance to open. And same with a “delay” in life, you might not have your own kids yet but you get to spoil the heck out of others with limited responsibilities #auntlife. Or if you aren’t working your dream job and struggling with what is next, those pauses might provide the clarity and motivation to figure out what it is you really want and make it happen. We can’t always take these circumstances as a “cancelled flight”, the plane is just not ready for departure to that next destination… YET. Our galley light is off, if you will… just needs some fine-tuning and then we will be ready to roll.
Sometimes those delays in our travel are there for a reason, both literally and figuratively.
Take Aways from Captain Silver Fox:
- Always talk to a pilot if you have the chance to sit next to them because they never have a boring story. Or at least you can ask them a bunch of dumb questions like you are 5 years old, including but not limited to “Have you ever almost crashed?” and “has your plane been struck by lightening?” – you were thinking it too I know….
- Be content in where you are. Not to the point of complacency but enjoy what you have and what you are doing in that moment and make it your own. This one is more of a reminder than a lesson I have mastered, trust me. Who knows, the reason we might be “delayed” in somewhere we want to be is there is a lot of turbulence up ahead that we are avoiding and waiting for those skies to clear before we soar.
View From Row 15 