Week Thirty-six – #keepcalm

#keepclam – it’s only life!

#keepcalm #itsonly #life

First week of September and is week thirty-six of my blog and is the week I return to work after a well deserved vacation. During my time off I was able to relax, reconnect and rekindled with family, friends, and myself and as you know if you read week thirty-four, I also stayed in touch with work. So all refreshed I left at 5 am Monday morning back to work, travelling to the beautiful city of Istanbul in Turkey. What could possibly go wrong?

As I arrived at Heathrow’s terminal 1 I went to the automatic boarding pass gate. I scanned my boarding pass and the message “seek assistance” came up, so I did by glancing over at the guard next to the automatic gate saying, “can you help me?” He looked at me, and growls “come over hear”. I calmly walked across and showed him my boarding pass, he stared at me saying “I don’t have a magic button I can press from here you know!” For a moment I through “what is that all about? I only did what the machine asked me to – seek assistance!” I was ready to pounce back at him; after all I’d just did what I was told and it was not my fault he was in a foul mood and having a bad day! But good instinct and two weeks of chilling out kicked in and as if by magic I was transported back to last week’s lessons I had learnt -“be happy” and that amazing picture I saw in the restaurant in Marbella “what a wonderful day, someone is bound to come and mess it up!” This guy was certainly trying to do this!!!

I walked away thanking him and smiling, which I am sure really messed up his head, he was looking for a fight! And as I approached security and stood in line I said to myself “it’s a wonderful day, I’m not going to let anyone mess it up”. Metaphorically speaking I was not just referring to that day but to life in general. If I am to write blogs which in turn are meant to be lessons of life that I share with you all to help people be better every day, I should take note of those lessons myself; and so I smiled and began to take my belt off. No I was not going to strip off with joy in the middle of the airport, I was getting ready to go through security, I like to make their job easier by simply removing everything that can possibly make me beep! I find security searches at Heathrow Airport over intrusive, bordering to sexual harassment, so better make sure I don’t beep, don’t want to be touched in places no other has reached by the big hairy guy on the other side!

I didn’t beep, I was off the hook this time, no touchy feely from the big hairy security guy but the man behind me did and he was not happy! I knew how he felt and there was nothing he could do about it. He started to complaint, bad idea, as these guys have the power to stop you from boarding the plane. I was feeling so chilled that if it had been me standing there getting sexually harassed by security, I would have just remembered my picture and carry on keeping calm. I left and he was still there, arguing! Who knows, may be he never made his flight letting someone mess up his day!

Every week I am more and more convinced that everything in life works if you want it to work. I guess week thirty-six is the test week for this! As I continued my journey to Istanbul, I noticed how people were getting exasperated about various events happening in their day, and mostly driven by others who came and “messed up” their day. As I landed at Frankfurt airport to change my flight, a gentleman behind me pushed his way to the front of the plane to disembark, he was clearly late for his connection (we had taken off slightly late) as so many of us but the difference between him and me was that I would keep clam; if I miss my flight I can always take the next one. What was interesting about this situation, apart from the fact that he annoyed half of the passengers as he pushed and shoved his way to the front, is that he didn’t realised we were in an “apron” position, this is where your plane is parked miles away from the terminal and busses take you to the gate. So his whole effort to get to the front had been in vain! But wait, this isn’t the best part – as he realised there are busses waiting for us, he started to scream and shout to the cabin crew as if it was their fault we were parked away from the terminal and demanded from them to do something! What can the cabin crew or even the pilot do? Here is where “keep calm” really applies; it’s a losing battle, there’s nothing you can do! When we finally arrived at the terminal I leisurely walked to my gate, and just as well I did not stressed about being late, the plane was faulty and we were facing a three-hour delay to Istanbul!

At the gate I’m surrounded by a sea of unhappy people whose day has been messed up and their unhappiness is messing up someone else’s day; the ground staff who I felt sorry for as people where coming over to the desk and angrily making ridiculous remarks – “why three hours?” can’t you hurry it up?” “what are you going to do about it?” and “why can’t you just get another plane?” yea, as if these people can magically get another plane! Surely there is a spare one in the garage! LOL. I, on the other hand, was actually pleased as I could use the time to catch up with e-mails and do some work, taking advantage of this unforeseen situation. So I walked calmly to the lounge and had a very productive three hours waiting for the plane. By the way, whenever there is a faulty plane, I rather wait three hours and get on one that works; I don’t want to risk my life just to get to where I need to. I’m sure many of these angry customers did not realised that this is the main reason for the delay! Once we got on the plane, three hours later, there was a further half an hour delay as some passengers did not show up and they had to remove their luggage, the container transporter broke and they couldn’t place the container back into the plane. I couldn’t help thinking “is this a test? What else could go wrong!”

I guess it was a test, my first day back at work and everything that could test my patience was happening to me! It’s like a carpenter turning up to work and he has no wood or tools to do his job, or the baker’s oven is broke and the bread has burnt – I travel for a living and all these events disrupt my work! But if I cannot keep calm and accept that these things can happen in my day, then everything I have shared, as lessons of life with you over the last 35 weeks, has been a waist of time! Life is so much better when we enjoy it, when we keep calm, when we accept that things will happen and some things you cannot change or influence and all you can do is adapt and turn things around to your advantage. Don’t let people or things mess up your day and remember, keep calm, after all its only life!