I was thinking about my trip last year to New York. The flight out there was great, but on the return flight I had a two hour window to arrive in Chicago’s O’Hare airport to catch my flight back to Orange County. The plane out of La Guardia was delayed and I sat on the tarmac due to weather delays. Needless to say, I didn’t make it onto my connecting flight. United said that the rest of the flights were overbooked and would not be able to get me up in the air until morning. I opted to “sleep” in the airport. The airline wouldn’t provide me with a blanket or a pillow since I wasn’t on the plane and my luggage was headed to Orange County without me.
I watched the airport inhabitants turned from families to maintenance workers with mops and brooms. It was hard to find a quiet nook without the clang of rolling trash cans and vacuums. I settled on terminal 21. I laid there with my shoes on because as a child, I watched an ABC afterschool special, I feared that my shoes would be stolen like in a homeless shelter. I didn’t get much sleep and was pretty cranky until that morning.
In the morning, the first flight to Orange County was at 7:55am and I had a spot. As the time got closer to boarding, people started shifting about and looking at their cell phones and designer watches. As the boarding time came and went, people began to murmur. You could cut the tension in the air with a knige. Then one man turns to his wife and says “with how much we pay for plane tickets these days, you would think they would be able to look at a watch and take off on time.” Other people began complaining. Much like one domino falling in a row, you heard a chain of frustrated sighs across the terminal. At about 8:45am, they announced we would be boarding shortly. In anticipation, people stood up, crowded the doorway and began jockeying for position like horses approaching the finish line. Needless to say, people were now even more frustrated than before, because the contagious discontent washed over passengers like a tsunami. Being negative is contagious and spreads like cancer. Left untreated, it can be deadly.
As the time came to, those with small children were called to board. As my section was called I walked past the entrance and waiting to get to 17C. In first class was this toddler with headphones on watching a Disney movie on a portable DVD player. She smiled and giggled with carefree abandon. It was quite amazing to see passengers in front of me shift from disgruntled to happy at the sight and laughter of this young child. It served as a reminder that we are in fact contagious by association. We sometimes forget how much power we have to make someone’s day. The choice is yours, so choose wisely.
Wishing You Wealth in all its Greatest Forms,
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