Earlier this week, I was flying from Chicago back to Greenville, South Carolina. I always love travelling, because of the unique encounters that I typically end up having. Airports fascinate me. For a brief moment, people from all different walks of life cross paths. Everyone comes from somewhere different, is going to somewhere different, for different reasons, and for different amounts of time. There are hellos and goodbyes, people who are rushing, and people taking their sweet time. We meet people who we will never see again, we run into old friends in the most unlikely of places, and we have a chance to take a peek into the world of complete strangers.
When I boarded my second flight of the day, I sat towards the back in a window seat. There were two spots open next to me and I was eager to see who would snag the open seats to my left. A woman with tired eyes loaded her carry-on into the overhead bin, sat down in the aisle seat, and immediately pulled out her headphones. I could tell she was less than thrilled to be travelling on that day. Not long after she got settled in, a middle-aged man came barreling down the aisle. As he began loading his carry-on bag into the overhead bin, he loudly remarked that whoever had previously loaded their bag into the space did so in an extremely ineffective manner. He continued to exclaim that it was ridiculous how people didn’t know the right way to position a bag in the overhead bin. The woman next to me took her headphones out and kindly apologized, as she told him that she did her best. He continued to berate her for her “mistake” and warned her that she should know better for next time. I was completely shocked listening to this entire exchange, as was everyone sitting around us. I noticed that the woman’s eyes were welling up with tears and I could tell that this encounter might’ve been the tipping point of her day. My heart nearly broke for her, so I gently touched her arm and reassured her to not worry about it. After all, it wasn’t a big deal in the slightest. The man who had been upset must have been having a rough day and decided to take out his frustrations over something as miniscule as the way a suitcase was stored on a plane. The woman shrugged and someone squeezed in our row to sit between us.
Although I didn’t get a chance to further converse with this woman, right when we landed her phone began buzzing. Being slightly nosy, I noticed that it was a doctor’s office calling. She answered the phone, exchanged a few words with the person on the other end of the line, and burst into hysterical tears. This woman who got on the plane had already seemed worn down to me. After being ridiculed by a random man, the thin thread that she was hanging on by was about to break. The awful news that she got at the end of the flight was her breaking point.
You might be wondering why I took the time to tell such a detailed story. This experience reminded me that we never know what another person is going through. We never know what trials and tribulations the people we come into contact with are facing. We could be meeting someone on the absolute worst day of their life and not have a clue.
Treat every person you meet with the utmost kindness and respect. Be perceptive to their body language, give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and never be judgmental. Be the one who lifts people up; not the one who tears them down.
