When I was 19 years old, I achieved gold status on an airline. Big deal for a 19 year old, right?
So how did I get so many miles that year. Well, because that year, I was the national youth president of the Boy Scouts of America (okay, officially the title was National Chief of the Order of the Arrow. Google it).
Yes, I wore a uniform. Yes, I was an Eagle Scout. Yes, I have many stories, including meeting the President in the Oval Office. I have a signed picture to prove it.
I learned a lot of lessons that year, but one of the biggest came because of all the traveling I did. I traveled as far west as Hawaii and as far east as a fjord in Norway.
I would give a speech and meet people and stay up late schmoozing. And then I’d fly home, rest up for a few days, and do it all over again.
As a result, I was on airplanes a lot (hence the gold status). And here’s an example of a type of situation that would happen…a lot.
I’d be on a plane, buckled in, ready to go, when the captain makes an announcement, something like, “Well, folks, turns out we have a mechanical issue and the maintenance crew is gonna have to fix the seventh fetzer valve.
That’s gonna take some time, so I hope we’ll be taking off in a couple hours. We’ll try and keep you comfortable.”
In such moments, I tend to experience a massive sinking feeling in my gut, because in all likelihood whatever it is, it’s going to take longer than whatever they’re telling me.
Now as a 19 year old — and, let’s be honest, as an older person now too — that situation could induce a serious case of shpilkes.
I would start to fret: Am I going to make it on time to the event? What will happen if I don’t? Also, this all took place before smartphones, so letting people know about the change in plans wasn’t nearly as easy. Would someone be waiting for me for hours at the airport?
What if they can’t replace that seventh fetzer valve and we have to change planes, and then that’s going to take more time, and I’m going to wind up flying into Omaha on a Cessna at 3:30 in the morning? You get the drift.
But it turned out that that experience was extraordinarily valuable for developing serenity in such situations. Because at that young age, I confronted the fact that all of this was entirely out of my control. There was literally nothing I could do about it.
Like every other passenger on that plane, my life was in the hands of the captain and the crew. And so, I reasoned, why worry?
It isn’t going to solve anything. I’ll get there when I get there. And in the worst case scenario, I’ll get off the plane, get put up in a hotel for the night, and come back in the morning. Ok.
Now while those experiences taught me important lessons about how to respond to things that were out of my control, they also helped me learn about responding to the things I could control, too.
Have you ever seen the customer service desk at an airport after a flight gets canceled. People are, understandably, worked up.
And they often take out their frustration and anger on the people whose job is simply trying to help. There are raised voices.
There are nasty words. A lot of huffing and puffing. When I see the agents trying to help people, my heart goes out to them — they have to have awfully thick skins.
But here’s where I realized I actually had a lot of control. I could be angry and huffy — which wouldn’t feel good for me and probably wouldn’t help get me what I wanted.
Or I could try kindness. I could try empathizing.
So I learned to go up to those customer service people and treat them as, well, people. I would give them a sympathetic smile, I’d acknowledge how challenging their job was in that moment, and thank them for helping.”
On a hard day, this gesture of kindness and humanity meant a lot to them. It felt better for both of us. It was equally if not more effective at solving my problem.
And, most of all, unlike repairing the fetzer valve, it was entirely in my control.
This whole airplane fetzer valve situation relates to the Bible. Specifically, to the Torah portion of Balak, in one of the strangest moments in the Torah.
Balak is the king of Moab, a nation neighboring the land of Canaan. He has heard about the Israelites’ miraculous exodus from Egypt and their recent military victories against other kingdoms en route to the promised land.
And he’s worried that the Israelites will come through his land and conquer him too. So he hires a sorcerer named Bilaam to curse the Israelites.
But every time Bilaam tries to curse them, God transforms his words into a blessing. (There’s also an episode involving a talking donkey. Seriously, it’s like the ancient version of Shrek).
What makes this Torah portion so strange, to me anyway, is that the Israelites aren’t actually part of this story.
They’re talked about, sure, but almost like they’re off-stage actors in the story. Which is weird, because during every other Torah portion, they are on the main stage.
Yet here, it’s as though the Torah breaks into the action to say, “Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Moab…” and shows the Israelites in a crystal ball in the palm of the hand of Bilaam, who is doing his best impersonation of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Over the years, I’ve come to feel that this change in narrative perspective is part of the lesson of the Torah portion. And that lesson is that some things are just not in our control.
We can’t control the actions of other people, just like the Israelites couldn’t control Balak, or Bilaam, or the nation of Moab.
We can’t control what others will decide to do. We can’t control the words someone else will attempt to say. Heck, we might not even be able to control the donkey we’re riding on.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t control anything. In fact, we can control a lot: Our own words, our own actions, our own responses to others.
The story of Balak, to me, is a reminder to focus on the things we can control and not fret so much about the things we can’t.
Of course, there are many practices that can help with this. The meditation I shared on last week’s episode — about Darth Vader and letting go — is a great one. (Can you imagine Vader responding to a maintenance issue on the plane?)
Another is a short little prayer that puts it better than just about anything I know.
It’s attributed to the great twentieth century Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and it’s called the serenity prayer.
It has been widely adopted by addiction recovery groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, but Niebuhr originally developed it in the 1930s and in the context of World War II.
And for this week, I’d like to invite you to try this as a practice to help you stay grounded, open, compassionate and wise during those stressful moments when you’re confronting something out of your control.
Before we say it, you might just take a moment to calm yourself–take a few good deep breaths, close your eyes, bring some quiet to your mind and body.
Now, the Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
I’ll say it one more time:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Today, as always, there is so much going on that we want to control, but that we can’t. And, as always, there is a lot we can control but don’t.
I hope this practice can help you, and help all of us, to be calmer, wiser, and more courageous.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.