Despair Is Not A Winning Strategy
It was the perfect ending to great work week. We arrived at the small airport early to focus on a couple of important calls and I was feeling on top of the world. The client I was traveling with had pretty good “status” and we went from economy to first class. Then it happened. “Delayed Flight”. We had a good window of time with our connection, so it wasn’t too stressful yet, but the goal was to get home!
We made a tough choice between the two restaurants at the airport and while we ordered beverages and nachos we got the notice on our American Airlines app – flight canceled. They were promising to get us home the next night, but our goal was to get home sooner. I had an important session with United Bank in the morning and my client had a golf tournament. We had to get home.
Have you been there? Everything is going great and then all of a sudden, it’s not. You have no control over what is happening, but you do have control over how you navigate the situation.
Many in the airport were on the phone complaining. The Canadian wildfire smoke was impacting the flights. Circumstances shifted and so did their hope. This reminds us that despair is not a winning strategy. The definition of despair is misery, discouragement, anguish, agony and distress. It leads to uncertainty and hopelessness.
We can let others control our situation (and out attitude), or take the bull by the horns and figure it out. Despair is not a winning strategy. About 3 hours from when I typed this, my family and I were in Grand Teton National Park. The six of us were making our way on 2.87 mile hike (hard core) and then my wife I heard a noise. It made the hair stick up on my neck and that’s plenty of hair! A grizzly bear was in the area. Listen – I want to see a bear, but I want to see it from my car. I don’t trust the bear spray to take care of my family even though I was carrying it. Here’s the deal – despair would get me no where. When circumstances outside of our control impact our world, we have to be ready to adapt and overcome.
Back to the airport. We weren’t there long. Within 27 minutes we had a rental car and my flight was booked from Philly to Dallas and Dallas to XNA. We navigated our not-so-ideal situation with hope, not despair!
Despair is NOT a winning strategy. When life changes take a breath, and think about how to accomplish your goal instead of thinking about what you can’t influence or control.
So what happened with the bear? After we wrestled the grizzly, our phone batteries died so we couldn’t take a picture.
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