The People You Meet on Planes

My dad likes to say he would not like sitting by me on planes. We don’t share a common gene of loving to meet strangers.

Last weekend I was flying back from DC to Dallas. It was a bright and early 6:30 am and I was quite sleep deprived, which I think makes me even more talkative. I sat down on Row 25 Seat F- by the window, my favorite. Sitting in the middle was a nice man in his 30s, who began talking to me. Of course, I was excited to make new friends. Then another girl in her late twenties sat down on the aisle seat and we all began chatting. He was a dad of 5 kids, only 31 years old, who got married at 19 while he was at the University of Arizona. He’s a hedge fund college endowment investor who is relocating his family from DC to Dallas and we gave him advice on which suburbs he should live in. The girl was a SMU grad who is in residency at a Children’s hospital in DC.

What ensued was a lovely conversation about trafficking and awareness within hospital staff and international development and our upbringings. We came from different backgrounds, had different lifestyles, but valued what we had to offer and learn from other another.

3 weeks ago, I was traveling to DC (excessive trips, I know) and I met a girl on a plane when I found out I was a Truman finalist. On Friday morning, she tweeted at me Good Luck, when I had literally said nothing about when my interview was on twitter.

This conversation and that simple, kind gesture made me think, What if we treated all strangers this way? What makes someone you meet on a plane different than the person who looks differently than you on the street? What if we valued what every person has to offer?

As you continue your week, instead of complaining about someone else, think about why they are doing what bothers you, and invest in their life.