Between reaction and response

A FEW weeks ago I was flying to Singapore and had just a kilo more than allowed on hand carried luggage. The excess weight was due to a few training manuals that I wanted to browse through on the flight. The lady checking me in said it won’t do and I will have to lessen the weight.

I offered to hold the training manuals in my hand but she said it wouldn’t help. I tried placing my cables and accessories in my check in baggage and that didn’t work too. I pleaded that it was just a kilo more and it was all paper, laptop, and laptop accessories. “The rules are on the ticket,” she said.

“May I speak to your supervisor, please?” I begged. She was the supervisor, she replied firmly. I was getting a little hot under the collar and then offered to tie my toiletries around my waist, which luckily happened to be in an old-fashioned fanny belt. It lessened the weight by less than half a kilo.

She agreed with an admonition, “Please make sure that next time your hand-carried is always less than seven kilos!”

“Next time, I am not flying your wonderful airline,” I tersely replied.

“We’ll take note of that!” was her quick comeback.

I walked away with my boarding in my hand and my fanny bag bouncing angrily on my fanny. The nonexistent hair on my nape and back were standing in rage and shame.

After I crossed immigration and security and while bending down to put my shoes back on my eyes connected with my reflection in the steel of the security tables.

In that bent down position, for that quick moment I looked into my own eyes and said: “What an idiot you are! Whatever happened to all that training and coaching you give and undergo in charm, in subtle influence and exercising charisma?”

It struck me if I’d just not reacted so quickly I would have been able to go through that scene in a hundred different ways and still come out a winner. The fanny bag would have happily stayed in your backpack than on my fanny throughout the trip.

The difference between reacting like I did and a very cool response that would have assuredly been so much better would have been to simply pause, step back , take a few careful breaths and come back with an open mind and an open heart. That lady supervisor was, in fact, just doing her job and doing it well, I reflected.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

He went on to add that in today’s world, “the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility.”

Yes, it makes sense to exercise our freedom and our rights or grasp for liberties that we think may be our rights but it also makes a larger sense to let others also travel their chosen paths in small interactions and also in the journey of life.

Here in the Philippines when we throw in a bit of Kapwa, a bit of Malasakit, and Bayanihan and make a Halo-Halo of these values we can then get a taste of what I am talking about.

A new year is coming up ahead very soon and of all the new goals that you might set yourself, think of setting a goal where you can a lot more responsible than reactive in life because, after all, our reactive nature does more harm to ourselves than to others.

For hours and days after that scenario at the airport, I am still living and processing that event. Part of me disapproves of how I behaved and a large part of me wants to go apologize to that lady supervisor. The issue is not huge but it is a scratch on my image of myself. Yes, it will heal and yes, I will work at healing and it and learning from it but if I can create a life where I learn less from wounding myself and more from being open-minded and kind in the first place then why shouldn’t I?

Have a great year ahead, folks!

I may be running a few workshops on communications, creativity and leadership in your neck of woods. Look me up.

Adios!