Nine months ago, I was at the airport waiting for my flight to Newark, New Jersey. Seated next to me was a couple who were going to London. They were very upset because their flight had a long delay which meant that they would miss a show for which they had tickets on the day they would have arrived.
I chatted
with them awhile, gave them a card about my latest book You Can’t Ruin My Day, and advised them not to be upset about the delayed
flight. I reminded them of how a child might see this as an adventure and
encouraged
them to focus on the things that were right rather than what wasn’t. After all
this was a trip they were looking forward to for a long time.
Fast
forward to last night during intermission at the theater. A man come over to me
and asked if I was Allen Klein. He looked a little familiar but I could not
remember where we might have met.
Then he
told me that we met when his flight to London was delayed. He wanted to thank
me for the advice I gave him. He said that my “you-can’t-ruin-my-day’
philosophy helped make him and his wife’s trip remarkable. Moreover, because
their flight was delayed so long, the airlines put them on an earlier flight
that got them to London in time to see their show.
I call
incidents like this a mini-miracle. I mean what were the chances this man and I
would be seeing the same show on the same night and that he would see me among
hundreds of people in the audience?
I also
find it a miracle of how each of us influence other people in both positive and
negative ways that we’ll never know. And that is why we need to be kind,
gentle, and caring with others even in the briefest of encounters.
©2017allenklein
