I love flying. It's always been my favorite form of travel. Ever since I was little, it always felt like a trip was more special if it involved time at the airport. Most people see the airport and air travel as a time consuming hassle, but I love every minute of it. It's exhilarating to travel.
My favorite time to fly is at night, over big cities. As the plane climbs into the dark nighttime sky, the cities that only a few hours ago seemed impossibly large suddenly fit within the visual confines of a rounded airplane window. There are not enough words to describe how cool this experience is. On my recent flight home from the east coast, I began thinking: the fact that you can see where huge cities like Boston and New York City begin and end and all their suburbs from a few thousand feet up puts a lot of things about life into perspective.
Looking out of the window over the wing and engine of the plane on my most recent trip, the realization came to me: the world is so big. It is absolutely massive. And we are so, so tiny.
10,000 feet below me were millions of humans, all of whom lived this day in a million different ways. They all have their families and friends and jobs and things they are dealing with. Somewhere down there, someone was having the best day of their life, someone was having the worst. A performance of "Hamilton" would have been wrapping up, while the night life in New York was just getting started. There is so much happening in the world all at once that we cannot even begin to fathom the delicate balance of it all.
Flying above those massive, sparkling, crowded cities with all those people experiencing the day in their own unique way, feeling their own emotions and handling their own lives makes me realize that the things that feel like the end of the world to me are so minuscule. The world is huge, the things I deal with on a daily basis are tiny, and definitely manageable. Nothing that happens is ever as big as it seems. There's so much to life, so much of the world left to explore, and it just blows my mind to think about how gigantic the world really is. My plans are big; my problems, stressors, and issues are small.
Maybe I seem dramatic, maybe I am just exhausted, but believe me when I say if you ever need to get some perspective on life, schedule your next flight for a little later in the day. Not only will you get to see major cities all ablaze and glittery; you'll have your own thoughts on how big this world is. Forget about the things happening in life, eat your little airline peanut packet, and just marvel at the speed of life happening below you. It's relaxing, this new worldview you get from a plexiglass 7x11 rounded, double-paned window. If you get as existential and excited as I do, you land feeling like you can tackle whatever you're facing. Make the most out of the adventure- personally and at your destination.
Boarding pass in hand, it's time to go take on the world.
