Inspiring Perspectives From 24B

I always have my Kindle at the ready.

You know the situation: you’re ensconced in your airplane seat, waiting for takeoff and, before you know it, you’ve allowed a conversation to break out with the character next to you.

No fear: when the time is ripe, my plan is simple. Wait for the first empty moment and execute the perfect dip of the head into my book. My message rings clear: this conversation was pleasant and is now complete.

But I gotta hand it to the guy in 24B… he was lovely. Intelligent, good listener, responsive.

That notwithstanding, I was tired. As engaging as he was, it still took a conscious effort to relate. And relate we did- the entire voyage from London to Berlin.

Were there moments when I lamented the loss of some precious sack time (absurd and random use of military jargon for sleep)? Yeah. But he was easy to talk to so what the hell.

And then it happened. It.

You know the it I’m talking about.

No? Come on- you do. Okay, I’ll explain.

It’s the moment when an entire conversation is worth the time for one moment of inspiration. One insight, either from your partner or from inside of you, triggered by the exchange.

In this case, it was all him.

We were discussing the freelance life, a recipe of variety and adventure mixed in with at times heavy doses of uncertainty, doubt and a constant requirement for innovation and creativity.

With ten minutes until landing, he was speaking of success and failure, the emotional and professional pendulum, and how he confronts it:

“New day, new fun, new luck.”

It made me smile. It reminded me of my child, a constant teacher of mine, who reminds me to approach each day clean, with absolute enthusiasm and zero expectation.

Fun can come in many forms if we wish it to. Failure can be fun because it arouses intense desire and creativity to change our fortunes next time. Luck might be flowing in constantly, if we just had the eyes to see it.

One thing’s for certain: no matter how cynical or jaded we become (a condition that can always be undone), we have the power to make our days unpredictable. In that uncertainty, possibility can emerge.

This guy in 24B gave me a gift. New day, new fun, new luck. Simple and powerful.