Traveling across America and Asia in the past decade, I’ve invariably met interesting people on planes. OJ’s lawyer Johnny Cochrane was incredibly short. Management guru Jim Collins was incredibly quiet. Actress Lisa Kudrow was incredibly nothing like Phoebe. However, some of the most fascinating people are actually the people who work in airports. Not the people at the ticket counters or running the security (if you can call it that) checkpoints. No, it’s the cashiers at the shops, the janitors in the bathrooms, the van drivers of the shuttles.
By and large, in the US in particular, these folks are immigrants. I determined one day a number of years ago that I would meet 100 of these people, talk to them for a while, and put together a compilation of their stories. (When you fly 150,000 miles a year trust me, it’s wouldn’t take that long to talk to that many people!) Part of it is realizing that many immigrants come here to the US who were doctors, engineers, etc in their homelands, yet cannot be professionals here without starting all over again with their education…a pricey proposition at best.
The spark that stands out in my mind is a woman in her sixties who was an immigrant from Africa according to her nametag that I saw in the Oakland airport manning one of the gift shop registers. Her manner with people, her professionalism, her sheer charisma made me want to know more about her story. That feeling repeated itself numerous times in numerous airports in numerous cities. Yet, I never pulled the trigger. There was always an email to answer, a call to make, a magazine to read.
Now, with the global economic meltdown, business travel for me, as with thousands of others, has slammed to a near halt. Even when it comes back, I am not in a place where I intend to log that many miles or see that many people in airports. While that means good things for my family and for my lower back, it also means that I can pretty much add that book, and the engagements that I could have had, to the list of things that I could have done.
Now as regrets in life go, it’s fairly lightweight, I know. Yet, a regret it is. What’s your book you might be missing the chance to write? Is it a class you aren’t taking? Is it a sport you aren’t taking up? Things may change before you know it that make it a book you’ll never get to write. Make sure you take the time to make sure which regrets you want to have.
3 comments:
Jeff, For being so "2007".. Excellent topic and a good read! I look forward to more.
This is a great message and humbling in so many ways. Not only in achieving something you always want in where you are at life but also the possibility with today's economic climate that our life can change and we'd have to be reborn in ourselves. We all could potentially be an "immigrant" in some form. I read the other day of a CEO that was very privileged all his life who now delivers pizza. But through all of it he was humbled and took pride in his work. You're right in that the most amazing people are doing the simplest of jobs. How often do we pass not humbling ourselves enough to be interested in their story.
You should follow through with that book, Jeff.
I've been on 2 trips since this has been posted and can't stop my urge to talk with the airport worker selling me my magazine. Thanks for adding more questions to an already confusing world. :)
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