I love to travel, but sometimes difficult situations arise.
Now before I proceed with my story you need to know that when I fly, I need to fast for 24 hours before the flight, because there isn’t any place for me to relieve myself when we are in the air.
Okay so here is the story:
We are sitting in the window seat on a flight from New York to San Francisco, and a young man sat down next to us. From the moment he sat down he was completely absorbed in his computer.
About an hour into the flight, he ordered a beer and two roast beef sandwiches. Now remember he was using his laptop so there was not a lot of space on his pull-down tray. He took the beer and sandwiches from the stewardess and placed them on the outer edge of his dropdown tray, which was about four inches from my nose.
When he first placed the sandwiches on his tray, I looked at Nancy with a look of disbelief, as if to say, “…Are you kidding me?” Nancy acknowledged the difficulty of the situation and petted my head.
I looked at the sandwiches again and then at Nancy. This back and forth of looking at the sandwiches and then at Nancy continued for about 5 minutes then I just dropped down into a ball on the floor and attempted to sleep.
Well, that lasted maybe ten minutes before I sat up again to check on the roast beef sandwiches.
The sandwiches were still there, and my self-control was still in tack.
I looked at the sandwiches, look at Nancy and then dropped my head into her lap and whimpered. From time to time, I would turn my head look at the sandwiches, then put my head back into her lap and whimpered.
This back and forth went on for several hours until Nancy said she couldn’t deal with it anymore. So, what did she do?
Nancy called the stewardess and ordered a bag of beef jerky that she had seen on the menu. At that point she had calculated that we only had about 2 hours left in the flight and she knew that it would take about two hours for anything she gave me to pass through my body, so even though Nancy had been told to NEVER EVER feed your service dog on a flight she decided to take a chance.
For the next two hours Nancy gave me the tiniest pieces of beef jerky by hand. And with each bite she gave me I said “…thank you…”. As we sat next to the roast beef sandwiches connected, loving, and appreciating each other I was reminded of how much I love Nancy and how a single choice can change your whole perspective on life.
So why am I telling you this story?
What Nancy and I relearned from that very long flight from New York to San Francisco is we can’t control life, nor can we control other people’s behavior. The only thing we can control is how we respond to a situation and the choices we make today decide the person or dog we will be tomorrow.
Yes, Nancy could have said something to the young gentleman next to me, but instead she decided to focus on us conducting ourselves in a manner that reflected who we were instead of trying to change another individual.
If you want some more support in your decision-making process, I suggest you explore the I Create What I Believe (ICWIB) program where my friend Luke will demonstrate the ICWIB activities and/or attend the FREE Drawing in the Now classes that are taught by Nancy Marie over Zoom the first and third Monday of the month from 4:30 pm-5:00 pm PST.
To view archived classes or for more information about the FREE Drawing in the Now Classes
visit: https://icreatewhatibelieve.com/drawing-in-the-now/
For more information about the ICWIB Online Training Program
visit https://icreatewhatibelieve.com/online-training/
If you would like to leave a comment for Alex regarding his Insights,
please visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/
or you can email Alex at Alex@icreatewhatibelieve.com
