How Little Words Make A Big Difference

 Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. ~ John Lennon

We’re off travelling again.  Nothing as exotic as a trip to the caribbean…off to visit family.   But a trip filled with love and laughter and lots of joy is as great as any exotic trip I might have.  Having missed everyone over Christmas, we decided we needed our family fix.

And just in case you notice over the weekend…the blog will be gone for a couple of days.  No, it hasn’t been hijacked by aliens, it’s been acting up lately and you might well ask…what’s in her consciousness?

Wish I could tell you.

All I can say is that I just know it’s coming back bigger and better than before…so stay tuned for the new, improved reflectingalife.  One that will work without all the gremlins that have been showing up of late.

Travelling and challenges

And since we’re heading on a jet plane again, thought I’d run this one by you…one of the early posts from way back when…all about a trip we took. Not that I’m expecting anything but smooth sailing…well flying.  Perish the thought.

We were headed for the City of Angels and ran into challenges, with a short delay, in airline terms, of an hour and a half, due to mechanical failure.  Airline speak for one of the overhead bins is broken.  It took two engineers an hour and a half to tape the bin.  I wish they’d told me what the problem was, I’m a dab hand and taping things and could have done it in five minutes.  Oh well.

The connecting flight left without us, probably the first time ever that I’ve seen the departure board say… flight departed… when it was my flight.  I found it a little disconcerting and disheartening and maybe a teeny bit demoralizing all at the same time.  We had made great plans. Up at four thirty in the morning to get a really, really early flight, get to L.A at a decent time and…blah blah blah.

Frazzled furrowed and hunched

The agents weren’t having a good time either…it was early in the morning and they had a plane load of unhappy passengers clamouring to know about connecting flights while lamenting their fate, lambasting the airline in general and the ticket agents specifically.  Not a pretty sight. They were pretty frazzled, brows furrowed, hunched over their computers trying to placate irritated people while remaining polite and calm.

I wondered how they did it?  These airline representatives were dealing with hordes of passengers every day some of whom were not going to be very happy, including me.  What a thankless task they had.  I stopped feeling sorry for me and began to feel sorry for them.  It wasn’t their fault that someone was incompetent, or that regulations had prevented the engineers from asking me to tape the bin.

Remembering the little words

I remembered my Mum telling us to pay attention to the little words that make a difference like thank you,  great job, you’re brilliant, you’re my hero, you’re wonderful, I love you.

Whilst I didn’t tell the agent that I loved her I will tell you that when we walked away with a seat on the very next flight to L.A she had a smile on her face as she greeted her next customer.  I might add that not every customer had the same ‘luck’ getting the next flight out.  In fact the fairly challenging woman in front of us didn’t fare quite so well.

They say that being kind is it’s own reward, but there are times when kindness is repaid in…well kind.  Who knew?

Hmmm. Mum was right, little words can have a big impact.

Encourage one another.

Love Elle
xoxo