You're Sitting in a Chair in the Sky

Louis E.K. tells this great story about flight delays. People on planes, they complain. They get off the plane, they come to your house, and they tell you about their whole flight experience. And they make it sound like it was a cattle car in Poland in the 40s. That was the worst day of my life. I had to sit on the runway for like 40 minutes. That's a story in this country. That's a hardship that you had to sit on the runway. People will listen to that story. They'll stop doing the dishes and turn around and go, oh my God, really? For 40 minutes? That's awful. You should totally sue them. Yeah, and it was really hot.

What happened then? Did you fly through the air like a bird? Incredibly? Did you soar into the clouds? Impossible? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight? And then land softly on giant tires that you couldn't even conceive how they put air in them? And it paying for my sandwich. You're flying. You're sitting in a chair in the sky. You're like a Greek myth right now. This bit is funny because we're all guilty of it from time to time. We're surrounded by everyday conveniences that would have been considered miracles just a generation ago. We supercomputers in our pockets that can give us a map of any place on Earth.

AI that can converse with us like a person. The fact that you can want something, click online, and it will just show up at your house the same day. But all of these innovations become normal over time. We get used to them and stop appreciating their incredible utility. What can we do about this? Another story. This one from Seth Godin. It was waiting for the final connecting flight of a long journey. The last leg into a small town on a tiny 30 seat plane. And this woman comes up to the counter and she says there must be an error because I have a first class seat. The woman behind the counter says, ma'am, there are no first class seats on this flight.

The passenger responds, you don't understand. I fear flying and and Goraphobia and these other phobias and flying first classes is the only way I can feel safe. I really need a first class seat. Now the woman behind the counter in this moment has a choice to make. She can argue with the passenger. She can show her the seating chart and the flight manifest. She could take the passenger's ticket and show her that she's wrong. But almost all of this is guaranteed to just lead to more conflict and the other woman digging in and possibly freaking her out a little bit more. She did something completely different.

She said, oh my gosh, my mistake, you're right. Every seat on this flight is first class. Crisis averted. We call this psychological framing. And we can do this with ourselves too, especially when we get fixated on something trivial or we're feeling anxious about something. We can remind ourselves that the small stuff doesn't matter. We can shift our thinking from, I have to wait 30 seconds for the streaming service to load my show to there are people alive today who when they were born, TV didn't exist. And when it did, it was a tiny black and white box with three channels on it. And we now live in a world with on demand, virtually limitless shows filled with incredible storytelling.

This isn't to say that there aren't problems in society and real issues that we should be upset about. But rather, if we can learn to frame minor inconveniences for what they are, tiny speed bumps in a world filled with convenience that would have been thought impossible a few generations ago. If we can alter our frame of mind to one of wonder and gratitude, this will free our mind to focus on what really matters to us. We can use our new found time and energy for things that really matter, for dealing with real issues in the world. We can focus on the projects that we're trying to bring into the world, focus on becoming who we want to become.

We can do the work to make the changes in the world that we want to see. It's up to each of us. We can see a plane with no first class seats or we can see one with only first class seats. Thank you for listening to the Nick Standlea podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate 5 stars, and leave a review. The best way to support this podcast is to visit our sponsors in the description. Follow on Instagram, at Nick Standlea, at N-I-C-K-S-T-A-N-D-L-E-A. Ask questions. Don't accept the status quo. Be curious.