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Oh, the dreaded “airport stuck.” I was on my way to a review course and to catch up with a friend the day prior to the review course when it happened. The Airport Stuck can happen anywhere, anytime though.
Despite the dumps of snow happening all around the country, my flight wasn’t even delayed due to weather reasons. It was due to aircraft maintenance. *facepalm*
This is how I found myself, after having woken at 4AM (and asking poor Mr. Sparks to wake up at 4AM as well and drive me to the airport in the snow), I first found myself stuck my local airport for a 2 hr departure delay and then found myself stuck in a connecting airport for a 7-hour layover.
You know what, though?
Sometimes, it just takes a different lens to look at things.
Practice Gratitude (and Hunker Down Somewhere Comfortable)
As I sat in my seat, staring over the multitude of empty seats on my first plane, it occurred to me that was a great opportunity to nap. There were probably only ten passengers on the plane after all the rebookings and flight changes. I was originally on a sardine-can packed flight. So, despite having gotten up quite early, I was able to lay down (curled up, of course) across the three seats to have a very decent nap on the first leg.
Unfortunately, the airline help desk at the connecting airport was not able to offer any earlier flights to my final destination. 7-hour layover it was.
I was quite grateful to have lounge access, however, for big windows, plentiful power outlets, free food, and unlimited tea thanks to my Amex Business Platinum card (the one I got in preparation to pay the rather large fee required by the Royal College for Mr. Sparks and I to apply for the privilege of writing two extremely stressful exams each).
I found a nice window seat through which to soak up a bit of winter sun and admire the mercurial Canadian winter weather. (It is now suddenly snowing large fluffy snowflakes). It’s actually quite nice.
In the days before I had lounge access, I would roam the airport for a few minutes to find a spot that was relatively comfortable and quiet before hunkering down for the upcoming hours. Finding a nice spot makes a difference!
Keep on Track
Given the large window of time and unlikelihood of seeing my friend until later this evening, I decided to pull out my Panda Planner and continue with my normal routine in a different setting. Today was not an exercise day and I’m rather shy about doing exercises in the airport. (My mother, on the other hand, is fearless about doing stretches in the airport. I ought to learn from her.)
Weekly review and plan first, then daily plan and goals. Today’s goals:
- Study for 2+ hours
- Read a bit of the library book I brought with me (The Second Mountain)
- Work on a blog post
- Follow up with potential presenters for my mini-Learning Night (which I’ve always wanted to do again since attending one that a friend hosted years ago)
- Start populating my LinkedIn profile with some actual CV items
- Further plan for an upcoming road trip this summer
After Panda-Planning, I studied for an hour and then took a lunch break.
Reflect
As I munched down on free hot lounge food, I looked through some open Chrome tabs on my phone. As emails come in in, I sometimes open posts and pages to be read later. (Do you do that too?) Sometimes I don’t get to these pages till a week or two later.
One of these Chrome pages was the Bentoism page that I had opened after finishing listening to Yancey Strickler’s (of Kickstarter fame) This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World (which I enjoyed very much).
Anyways, the Chrome page had just gotten to the start of Bento exercise. I was in the airport lounge, with no active familial or social responsibilities pressing. The ambient volume was reasonable for thinking. I had a glass of water to my left, lots of natural light, and had just had a bathroom break. What better place to do some reflecting?
To summarize the Bento box exercise, the idea is to create a little decision-making guide or framework through four of our own perspectives – Now Me, Now Us, Future Me, and Future Us. “Me” is self-explanatory. “Us” includes our family, friends, community, and/or world at large.
The idea is to fill the boxes with what each of these four of your perspectives want. And then extrapolate themes (a.k.a. values) from those.
Here are my two Bento box reflections.
Bento Exercise 1: Needs
It was interesting to reflect on this bento – clearly Now Me has a lot of needs and wants. In a moment of honesty, “Being in control” and “Winning” were tossed in there too. Now Me really likes to have things under control – myself and the world around me. It’s a double-edged sword. Now Me also likes to win at life. But that really begs the question of “what does it mean to win at life?” So “Purpose and Meaning” came right after.
Also interesting that Future Me has fewer needs. Maybe projecting to my future self better distills down to what’s important?
Bento Exercise 2: Themes
It’s interesting thinking about the next generation. I have no children presently, and have not thought much about future child(ren) beyond “when is the optimal timing? …There is no optimal timing…” and “work-life balance!” Prior to this exercise, I would say I have not really thought about the next generation at large.
If I take a moment to think about the next generation though, I’d like for them to know they were wanted, and they were important even before they were born. I’d also like for them to look at my generation and the other generations before mine, feel inspired by what we all accomplished, and be inspired to do even better than we did. One-upmanship at it’s best! 🙂
Of course, this all hinges on having a world to live in and do things in. I’ve been mostly sticking my head in the sand as far as the environment is concerned and trying to focus on where I feel I might actually one day be able to make a difference (healthcare). But I’m slowly starting to think more about the environment. Hard not to these days.
Be Fine with Flexibility
Once upon a time, I would have been quite distressed to not accomplish all the things on the to-do list. I think ever since undergrad ended, the to-do list is never ending, and I’ve come to realize that some things are important to get done RIGHT NOW, some things are important to get done some time, and some things just aren’t that important.
Writing this blog post was not planned in my goal’s list, but here we are 🙂 I hope it helps spark some ideas for how to have a productive layover! Would love to hear your thoughts on how you’ve managed unexpected airport delays.
And now, I’m going to get back to the rest of my productivity goals for the day.
-Dr. FIREfly
