So there I was connecting through JFK, ATL, SLC, DIA, SFO . . . . . you name it. Does it really matter? Sure, I’ll brag about the airport that I prefer to fly through . . . . but really, how different is it from all the others. Just look around. Starbucks, Panda Express Chilis Too and McDonalds are provided for your dining experience - at a higher expense of course. Overpriced book stores and the duty free shops shine throughout all terminals.
So, there I was, connecting through John F Kennedy airport in New York City on my way to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. I had taken a red eye out of Phoenix and it was now 6:00 AM in New York and I had a few hours to kill. I was also hungry, so I went on a search for an open restaurant.
I found one, but I certainly got more than I bargain for. I only ordered some French toast sticks and some hash browns, but I learned a few life lessons. An airport is quite a rich place to learn about people and our human condition.
So, here are a few things I noticed.
We as people are desperate to feel important.
After having breakfast, I found a comfortable place to sit. There were lounge chairs right outside the currently closed Samuel Adam’s Brewery and restaurant. As I sat there, I began to chat with some Armani wearing businessmen and Bluetooth-toting businesswomen who were also traveling. They must have been tired of working and took some time to talk with me. Their tables were brimming with notes, high-end laptops, a tall cup of gourmet coffee and a bagel with light cream cheese. I noticed their upscale carry-on bags, all tagged with plastic labels revealing their platinum or gold status on their respective preferred airlines. Their sagging eyes revealed a lot of miles in the air, but these road weary business travelers didn’t want to admit their exhaustion.
In fact, as we sat there, they bragged about the number of miles they had traveled and the size of their recent cell phone bill. They were all trying to one-up each other with their extravagant stories and grueling travel schedules. One guy had managed to rack a bill of $6500 on his mobile phone, most of that due to a few long calls from Karachi, Pakistan. I wondered what he was doing in Karachi and what made those calls so important. Another guy bragged about his recent road travelers. In the last month he had traveled to Mexico City, Stockholm, Dubai, Toronto and San Francisco twice. I asked him what he did. His reply didn’t make much sense to me, something about global service consultant for a marketing firm. They commented about the quality of the first-class lounges for each airline, generally concluding that slowly the amenities were getting worse instead of better.
They were all electronic gurus. From laptops to PDA devices, they were savvy about communication. They argued about Mac vs PC and the quality of cell phone providers. One woman commented about how she even had reception in rural Estonia and Latvia with her Cingular plan. Why did she need to travel to that area? She mentioned something about upgrading power plants and providing power to military installs.
No one really bragged about what they actually did for a living. Titles were hazy and didn’t provide much context for what they actually did. I think they liked it that way. They wanted to remain mysterious, even to their co-worker. The only thing that was clear was that most of them didn’t care for what they did. Occasionally one would mention how they wished they could spend more time with their family. A gentlemen in a navy blue suit commented about how he just missed his daughter’s first piano recital because of a last minute trip to Seoul. His blank face told a longer story, a story of aguish. I wanted to ask him “was the trip to Seoul really worth it?”.
I am certainly no expert and I really didn’t know this guy, but it appeared that he was torn between the appearance of importance and genuine importance. What if he told his colleagues that he couldn’t make the trip and it was because he needed to go to a recital? And what if there was no recital? What if it was just to spend time with his family because he had been away for so long?
But we love to feel important, so we push through long hours at the office or obsess over our families. We are desperate for our lives to mean something that sometimes we’ll settle for the appearance of importance than really seeking out true godly priorities.
The point of this dialogue is not to say that piano recitals are more important than trips to Seoul, but simply to say that we need to always understand where our value comes from. My self worth should not come from bragging to others about my job, fiancé or past travels. Sure, I value those parts of my life and they are fun to talk about . . . . but I recognize where those things come from. I am excelling because of my God-given talents. I get to travel the world because God has called me. I have an amazing fiancé because God has brought her into my life. For me to brag would be an insult to my Creator.
But even more than that, I know my full value is found in Christ. He says to me that I am a child of God. He whispers in my ear that I am loved, that I was created for a unique purpose. Even if I never see another foreign country, my life is complete in my relationship with God.
Long lines test our true character
If you want to experience travel frustration, there is no better place to enjoy such discomfort as JFK. As one of the busiest airports in the world, there are plenty of long lines, unreasonable waits and unexplainable congestion. There is no shortage of frustrating situations.
I watched a business traveler get extremely frustrated with a TSA employee and he just began yelling. However, after vocally ripping this person a “new one”, did his condition improve? No, he still had to face the tight security conditions. If anything, he had frustrated the passengers around him and embarrassed himself.
These lines and confusion test our real character. As you watch different people respond to the similar maddening airport conditions, character and tolerance level is revealed. Everyone would like to think of themselves as nice and kind individuals. And I suppose that would be true if life was perfect and everyone treated each other with great respect. However, that scenario never occurs.
In our broken world things seem to fall apart more often than not and it is up to us how we react to these difficult conditions.
more truths to come . . . . Josh KienzleAt 34,000 feet
