It was a cold, December day at JFK as passengers boarded a Korean Air jumbo jet bound for Incheon, South Korea. Among the passengers was Heather Cho, vice-president of Korean Air and daughter of the airline’s chairman.
Sitting in her first-class seat waiting for the plane to take off, Heather was offered a beverage and a bag of macadamia nuts.
Outraged that the nuts were not served on a dish, Heather proceeded to berate the flight attendant.
As the crew chief kneeled to apologize, Heather continued her thrashing with plenty of profanity. She then had the pilot return back to the gate to expel the attendant, delaying the entire flight.
Later, the company faced a $2 million fine for breaking aviation law. Clearly, Heather went nuts over her macadamia nuts.
I’ve flown enough to know it’s not just Heather who can turn from a frequent flyer into a frustrated flyer. On a recent flight to Chicago, the pilot announced we would be facing a 15-minute delay causing passengers to erupt in universal disdain.
“I can’t believe this… Why can’t they figure out how to schedule these flights… Why do they always have delays when I have a tight connection?”
And those were just my comments.
Around me, a chorus of disgruntled travelers muttered their own grievances about the 15-minute inconvenience, a complaint not all that far from being served nuts in a bag.
Somehow both Heather and I have forgotten flight itself had been reserved for the birds for the vast majority of human history. It wasn’t until December 17, 1903 that flight became a reality as Wilbur cheered when Orville launched himself off Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina for a total of 12 seconds.
In the past 100 years, we’ve made massive progress. Advancing from leaky, wind-blown boats to giant cruise liners and rickety, wooden planes to jumbo jets.
If we are sitting in an airplane seat at all, we should be overwhelmed with gratitude for the gift of flight.
Yet, perspective is difficult to grasp. And when our expectation is a dish and we’re served a bag, or when 9:30 turns into 9:45, we tend to go a little nuts.
Whether on planes or trains, at work or at home, every single day you and I choose if we slip into entitlement or if we rise above and grasp gratitude.
Like the same poles of a magnet, gratitude and entitlement repel each other. Simply stated, entitlement and gratitude cannot coexist. As Brene Brown writes, “What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.”
Today, there is a war waging in our hearts and in our culture to determine which attitude is stronger.
Entitlement is pervasive, corrosive, destructive and toxic. Thankfully, gratitude can untangle us from the web of entitled thinking, strengthen our relationships, and unleash joy.
My hope is for our world to be shaken out of our privileged, entitled mentality, and grow into a state of fervent, genuine appreciation. A mindset of such gratitude would make flights, and all of life, far more beautiful.
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If you’re interested in this subject of gratitude and entitlement, check out John Townsend’s new book The Entitlement Cure.
