There's a request, a plea for someone with flexible travel plans to take a flight that's an hour and a half later to our Ohio destination. There's a $300 voucher. I have no set time to be home. I pick up the ticket.
I look at the ticket and notice that, for the first time in my life, I'm in the first boarding group. Row 2, seat D.
Is it first class?
It is.
It's the largest seat at the very front of the plane. I extend my knee, and I'm still feet away from the board in front of me.
The pilot's voice cracks over the speaker:
"There's a large line of thunderstorms to the west. We'll be unable to take off until we see a break. It will probably be an hour or two."
We spend time on the plane, and what a time to be stuck in first class! Daisy, the lovely-kind flight attendant, brings us cups of water and extra cookies. I'm not cramped. The seats are wide. The other passengers look svelte and glamorous. And there is a certain attentiveness that I know that I haven't received on a plane before, although to Daisy's credit, she was wonderful to all passengers.
This isn't a rant against the other passengers in first class. All were very respectful and kind. No one complained, which is unusual from urban folks with busy lives that do not rely on Mother Natures liquid grace.
This is a revelation that sometimes we are addicts and we don't even know it. As I sat pondering why someone might choose to freely spend an extra 70$ to sit in first class (excluding giantism), and it made sense.
People, many of us on planet earth, are addicted to feeling special.
Maybe they weren't special their whole life. Maybe they have grown to rely too much on others' good words and encouragement, instead of find the compass within. Maybe they heard TOO much about how special they were their whole life, and feel insecure in compliment-droughts. Maybe they feel unloved. Maybe it's insecurity that they're not really worthwhile, and "feeling special" counteracts that.
But we chase things, accumulate socially valued objects or benchmarks, make bad relationship choices, cut down others (in our heads and/or verbally), exclude others, strive harder, seek accolades, act nice/cutsey, are shattered by rejection, take vacations we can't afford, try to appear "put together," are intensely angered by disrespect, require gifts, seek service from "inferiors" etc.
All for a feeling (feeling "special") that depends on others to give it. Or that depends on us devaluing others to foster.
Because we're not special. Everyone is. By virtue of that fact, no one is. But just because we aren't special doesn't mean that we are not valuable or cherished.
And we know that we are valuable, that we have potential, and purpose, simply because we're still here, and we have a day ahead of us. Our work here is not done.
Do we spend that day trying to inflate our own importance, in secret fear that the world will figure out who we really are, or do we spend that day of humbling ourselves to patiently serve others?
Are we addicted to euphoric joy from the compliment or attentiveness that makes us "feel special," or do we live a life of real, present engagement with others, of valuing others at least as much as we value ourselves? Of showing them that they are special through the language of action, of intangible nonverbals?
I do not make the right choice often enough.
I guess that's why I had a day in first class to figure that out,
and to guard myself against.
Because prevention is the best cure for addiction.
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