Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Flying, Balancing and iPhoning

Humans are funny creatures.

Take the airport chaos with all the snow last month. People were outraged that flights were cancelled, that the airlines couldn't find room in overbooked hotels for them etc.
(The two kids in front of me at the check in desk in Paris actually shouted "yeah! It's gonna be like camping!" after finding out they're going to sleep on the airport floor somewhere. Even their parents didn't seem to really mind. Good for them).
And now the airline authorities want to impose heavy penalties on airports that don't respond good enough in future to events such as the weather (that they of course have total control over).
Way to have you're bread buttered on both sides.
Weather conditions are bad. Flights are delayed for the safety of the passengers. Definitely not for fun, the airlines lose a lot of money at such times. And then people jump up and down that they can't get to their destinations in time.
Let just one aeroplane try to depart or land in such weather and if (or rather when) something goes wrong, people jump up and down (if they're lucky) because their safety is not important to the airlines.
Yes, you missed a day or two or three that you'd rather have spent somewhere else, but at least you HAD that extra day or two or three and all the others after it.
Just chill. No shouting, swearing, huffing and puffing and blowing the house downing is going to change anything, except your blood pressure, which may in fact reduce your life expectancy and keep you from catching that delayed/rebooked flight!
So why not join me in a New Year's Resolution to just relax this year. To not take everything so seriously. To just accept and make the best of bad situations that you have no control over anyway.

And I bet a lot of those people also bought into the super-duper silicon arm band with a hectic cool hologram that does wonders for your balance, strength and flexibility. And something about negative ions that sounds like something a scientologist came up with.
Even the creators declared: "We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims."
No doubt those people that claim that the bands improve their skills, truly believe that it helps. And I'm not talking about all those famous sports personalities that take home a hefty fee for advertising the band and influencing the gullible masses.
Believing in something is really powerful. But why do we need something else to believe in other than ourselves? Why is it so much easier to give yourself a boost by pouring your confidence into a power band or a lucky sock or Barney the purple dinosaur?
The only answer I can think of is that we easily doubt our own abilities. We think we're not good enough or fast enough or thin enough and then try to take the easy way out and focus on power bands, power drinks, power diets. And a short while later they aren't "effective" anymore, and we jump on the next bandwagon.
Luckily I've never really tried any of those. Not because I don't have doubt in myself, but because I don't like trends. You will very rarely find me in the masses.
Still, another one of my New Years Resolutions will be to Believe in Myself and work for what I want.
Now I just have to figure out what do I want...

And finally, I just want to give a round of applause to some of the South African iPhone users that commented on a recent news report about the iPhone alarm issues. For those who don't know, due to a daylight savings setting or something, the iPhone time changed, but the alarm time did not and loads of iPhone users were late (or early) for various different things.
And for the above mentioned South African users that wondered why their alarms all went off with no problems whatsoever....S.A. doesn't have daylight savings time switches, so you don't have to worry, there is nothing wrong (or right) with your phones. You can sleep easy.
And no, I don't have a New Year's resolution to get an iPhone. I just don't like touch screens.
But it is time to try and sleep easy tonight.

Njoy

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