Do you ever wonder what would happen if you’d made one tiny
decision differently? I am always wondering about this – yeah I’m a pretty
indecisive and occasionally paranoid person -
and this week I’ve thought about it A LOT.
Why you ask? Because the past ten days have been a doozy for
me. It all started when I swapped onto a Dallas trip, because as always, I
wanted to swap off the Dubai trip that was rostered for me. Now, you’d think
after almost two years of swapping trips and something crazy always happening
on the trip I swap onto (delays, diversions, passenger medical emergencies,
crazy weather) I would know not to swap anymore, but alas I still do it as my
life as a commuter depends on being able to swap trips and manipulate my roster
to work as best as it can for my work/life balance.
So anyways, I swapped onto this Dallas and on the way up to
Dallas from Sydney I was helping a mother of twin babies out by cuddling one
twin while she settled the other one down to sleep. It was the middle of the
night and she was travelling with her elderly father, her twins and her four
year old and that’s it. All the crew felt for her – it was a very long trip to
be doing with her little precious cargo, but her babies had been quite good,
and I was impressed with how they had behaved. So when she asked me to hold one
of the twins I was only too happy to. After all, I love babies!
But then he threw up on me. That’s right. I finally popped
my having a passenger throw up on me cherry. It only took five years of flying
for it to finally happen. I guess I should be grateful that it was only baby
spew and not adult spew. But he had just eaten sweet potato AND he was sick
with a cold.
Gross.
Anyway, a few days later we attempted to leave Dallas bound
for Sydney again in the midst of wild thunderstorms in Dallas. The shocking
lightening and pounding rain meant we left Dallas several hours late, and by
the time we got to Sydney all us crew were almost out of hours to legally work.
Safe to say I was pretty beat. But I wearily hopped on my plane bound for Perth
a few hours later and got settled in my seat, only to have the aircraft turn
back to the gate twice for engineering issues. In the end I finally crawled
into my own bed at 5pm, rather than the 11am I’d originally planned.
I slept for foreverrrrrrrrrrrr and woke up at 12:30am, just
as my Mum was about to head to bed. Before she did though she kindly reheated
me some of the chicken and broccoli bake she’d made her and my dad for dinner.
It was delicious.
But the next morning I woke up vomiting my heart out. And
spent the entire day with my head over the toilet continuing to vomit my heart
out. Food poisoning is so rad y’all.
I was finally starting to feel normal again yesterday when I
started getting sniffly. Today I have felt shocking yet again, slugged with a
full blown cold. What a week!
My point is, would all this have happened if I’d made one
tiny decision differently? If I hadn’t swapped onto the Dallas trip I wouldn’t have
gotten spewed on. And because that baby was sick with a cold I wonder if the
cold I have now is from him? (I also wonder if I vomited all day Tuesday
because of him, but actually I think it was the dodgy chicken really that did
it to me. If it was the baby it was a pretty delayed reaction for me) If I had
done the Dubai instead of the Dallas I would’ve been able to get on a different
flight home and gotten home into my bed earlier, therefore perhaps being better
for my health and well being that week as I wouldn’t have been so exhausted and
run down?
If I hadn’t gone to Dallas and I hadn’t gotten sick when I
got home from it I wouldn’t even be writing this blog entry right now, because
I’d already be back at work doing an LA trip.
It’s funny isn’t it? Asking what if? I know they say that
every different decision you make leads you down the path you were truly meant
to go down, but I still get so curious. A few months before I got my first
flying job I was offered a place at a summer camp for girl guides in rural
Louisiana in the US. I was all set to go – had even been given a camp nickname
by the director that the kids would call me – and then I was offered my first
job as a flight attendant and I decided to take it, thinking that it might be
the only chance I would ever have to get my foot in the aviation door. But I
often think back and wonder what it would’ve been like to go to Louisiana, who
I would’ve met there, the experiences I would’ve had, if maybe I would’ve just
been able to break into flying when I got back from camp. They’re things I will
always wonder about.
Of course sometimes these decisions turn out to be life
changing, which I find fascinating. I recently read an article about a man who
decided to personally take his child to school instead of letting them take the
bus on the morning of September 11, 2001. Because of that he wasn’t in his
office in World Trade Centre 1 when the planes struck. Was that not the best
decision of his life or what?! One I am sure he has survivor’s guilt about, but
still, great decision, because it meant he got to live.
My life changed when I decided to do my first Contiki tour
on a certain date in April over another certain date in April of 2009 and
because I picked that tour on that date, I met one of my best friends, and two
weeks ago I was there to watch her get married and make a speech at her
ceremony. Great decision about dates and destinations there huh? One decision I
am very grateful I made.
Have you ever made a life changing decision – or even a tiny
every day one – that has shaped your life in a massive way as a result? I’d love
to hear of your experiences, so leave me a comment and tell me all about it!
Jorgs
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| Top right is us SO YOUNG in Europe! |
I TOTALLY get what you mean (not least because I just quit another degree, which I've done multiple times because I'm more of a 'trust your instincts' kind of girl ;-) hehe). My life changing decision was probably when I was around 20 and realised that I had a year and a half left on my business degree and did I really want to be an accountant for the rest of my life? Noooope. At the time I was in the middle of re-watching The Practice and I remembered all the times I'd said when I was much younger that I wanted to be a lawyer, and I went for a walk along the river to clear my head and think about what I wanted to do, and I said 'well okay I'll study that, I think it could really suit me'. That was a little over ten years ago, and it has absolutely defined those last ten years, and will define the rest of my life. The decision four years ago to do the PhD was a little bit the same, but really once I started law it was inevitable, and I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be. However, sometimes I look back and wonder what my life would be like if I'd graduated at 21 and become an accountant, and I'd probably be earning 80K in the city, my postgrad qualifications would be a CPA/CA, I'd be commuting every day, wearing suits and stockings, and I might even have found someone to marry and all that...and yet while those things sound pretty positive on paper, I have NO IDEA who that person is, and I don't think she would have been very happy! Bizarre! I'm glad I'm not the only one who has random thoughts about those kinds of things though.
ReplyDeleteHere is one of my favourite quotes on the issue too - it actually hangs above my computer in my room, so I see it every day. And it's from Scully in the X Files (no huge surprise there) but I love it:
"Time passes in moments; moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead toward its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen, to consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed. But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And seeing those choices, choose another path?"
:-)
^Love the comment above! :)
ReplyDeleteI've had similar experiences when I was still flying. I had the opposite experience during my very last trip at Virgin. We had headed into the briefing and you know when some crew snag up the good positions before you've even had a chance to open your mouth? That happened. I was in business class when I really wanted to work in economy that flight at doors 3 and have a nice cruisey last flight. Anyway, I got over it and got stuck into working in business class. Turns out I was right to not whinge about not being put at doors 3: When we landed into Melbourne, this guy projectile vomited EVERYWHERE and the poor girl at doors 3 where I wanted to work was covered from head to toe in it.
Career wise I do the same. I often think about what my life would've been like if I'd just stayed teaching instead of making the leap into flying. But even though I've made the decision to move on, flying has been good for me. I'm no longer that shy girl anymore. I'm more assertive, I stand up for myself. And I'm sure only time will tell as to whether or not I've made the right decision about hanging up my wings.
Probably for me though, the biggest 'what if' was when we immigrated to Australia when I was 8. I often wonder what my life would've been like if we'd stayed living in the UK. We certainly had more money in the UK- My Dad had a better paid job, we had a company car and we more financially secure. So life would've been more comfortable over there. Yet we have a much better lifestyle here. And it hits home when I hear from my UK cousins and see what their life is like compared to mine. I guess everyone has these moments though. When they ask themselves 'What if.' I'm a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, and I think you just have the make the best of what is in front of you at the time.