Flight delays: time muggings and hard targets

People who travel a lot know they will be mugged for time at some point or other. The savvy traveler knows it too, but is prepared and may even enjoy a longer delay. When the right steps are taken, “yes Virginia, getting there can be half the fun”!

Here is how to become a hard target for time muggings when traveling.

1. Have reading material and always have a back up. A flight delay may offer a rare opportunity to sit down with a great book! But if you find that new bestseller is a bust or worse, you’ve brought a book that you have read before, it’s nice to have an alternative.
2. Pick a card…any card. Carry some blank cards with you and write out a lifetime goal on each one. Take one of them and expand on it with details.
3. Become a Hollywood/Bollywood casting director. Pick a particular time or event in your life and cast the major characters from the folks around or walking past you. (Don’t worry, you can punch up the script later.) Who should play your spouse or best friend? What about brothers and sisters, an evil boss or co-worker?
4. Cheer yourself up. See if you can visit the arrivals area where so many folks are glad to see each other. This has helped me at airports and hospitals. It can do the soul good to visit the maternity ward after a few hours with a friend or a relative on the departures floor.
5. Please sir, can I have more? Two or three hours between flights may not be as good as four or more! With a longer wait time you may be able to take a bus or train into a city. Four hours in Rome is certainly not enough, but I may not have been able to visit the Coliseum otherwise.
6. Crime and punishment. Write down five new laws and the accompanying fines and jail time for your fellow travelers who talk on their cell phones or text incessantly. (If you are a talkee or textee, write the crime and punishment for those judgmental people who never learned to be productive, obviously don’t have any friends and should mind their own business!)

Your shortest trip may be the most important; it is the sixteen inches or so from your head to your heart. Your perception and your attitude will help you accept the delay by  being productive and having some fun. Someone has given us a gift of time so let’s make some lemonade