Jon was late.

Again.

And he was ticked off at everything and everyone.

Again.

He had already decided that this was not going to be a good day.

His flight was scheduled to leave at 8:05 a.m., which meant he wanted to be completely ready, backpack in hand, and walking out the door at 6:05. This was the plan he had laid out in his head the previous night. It would give him plenty of time to get to the airport, check in at valet parking, breeze through the TSA Precheck lane, grab a second cup of coffee from his favorite airport hotspot, and be at the gate in time for another look at his newly finished presentation and early boarding with his Frequent Flyer status.

As Jon had slipped into bed the night before, he had smiled. It was good to have a plan.

It was better to have status.

It was now 5:41. He was sitting on a stool in his closet, not smiling, and rubbing his aching foot. He was thinking about how he had not yet accomplished anything. This was not the plan at all. “How did this day get so screwed up already?”

As is often the case, it began with the alarm.

Jon's perfect plans had included a 5:15 wake‐up, a quick change into his workout clothes for 25 minutes on the elliptical, and 15 minutes to shower, shave, and dress. This should have left him a short buffer to pour a cup of coffee to go; snatch a banana from the basket that his wife, Grace, always kept stocked with fresh fruit; and grab his carry‐on and backpack as he headed out the door. He had even laid out his clothes, packed his bag and hauled it downstairs the night before so he wouldn't wake up Grace digging through the dresser early in the morning—as had happened many times before. He was proud of himself for being so thoughtful. All was set in order to get to the airport right on time.

The perfect plan.

He had heard his smartphone alarm at 5:39. That wasn't a phone glitch; his last thought before trying to close his eyes was, “Hey! I've packed my bags ahead of time. That gives me an extra 15 minutes to sleep!” Impulsively, Jon had changed the wake‐up time. He had justified that this extra sleep would make up for the time he had spent returning emails in bed—a task he had not accounted for in his planning. Now, even in his slow retreat from slumber as his feet hit the floor, he wondered where the other nine minutes went.

What didn't come slowly was his irritation over the fact that his plans were quickly going south.

“Okay, 10 minutes of a workout is still better than none. And I can shorten my shower,” he reasoned, as he unplugged his phone from the charger and headed for the bathroom.

“Ouch!” He tried to muffle his shriek as his bare foot stepped directly on top of the hard rubber bone that Dumbledore, their dog, had dropped by the bed immediately before joining Grace and Jon, panting and wagging his entire body as he nestled in for the night. (Where the 65‐pound fuzz‐ball slept when their 10‐year‐old daughter, Annalise, was gone to a sleepover was still a bone of contention.)

This bone happened to be the one of those dental toys with spikes! Jon glanced quickly at Grace's side of the bed, still not wanting to wake her, though that was becoming less of a concern as he thought, “Why does she have to let that idiot dog sleep with us, anyway? She knows I need to get in six hours of sleep and Dumbledore could make that difficult if not impossible!”

“From now on that dog is going in the crate whenever Annalise is gone,” he half‐mumbled. “And what the heck were they thinking when they bought that assault‐weapon dog toy? Obviously not about me!”

Jon limped into the bathroom and not‐so‐quietly closed the door.

As usual, his morning had started in a state of hurry. “Do it now” and “do it next” lists dominated his thoughts. Tension and stress already filled his body. The list of people and things he blamed for his quickly deteriorating morning was growing rapidly. The emotions he was carrying both in his brain and in his body were so fired up that he was rushing through his morning, completely unaware of anything around him.

So now Jon sat in his closet—with his aching foot and angry face—tense, frustrated, and more than 20 minutes behind what had been the perfect schedule.

No sense of wonder.

No sense of joy.

No sense of peace.

Not a grateful thought in his head.

His only sense was of pain. And his only thought was, “Why do all of these things always happen to me?”

As Jon rubbed his foot, he stared in confusion at the second thing he had stumbled over that young morning. In the middle of his limping‐hurry to the bathroom, he had tripped over anther object that, for some reason, was sitting in the middle of the closet doorway.

“How in the world did I get taken out by my own backpack?”

Sofia had been “short called” two hours ago. She didn't mind. It was a clear expectation of the job—one that she planned for. In her job as a flight attendant, so many unplanned things occurred on a daily basis that she was used to being prepared for the unexpected. Some of her fellow flight crew members viewed their reserve‐line schedule as days off with a possibility of being interrupted by work; Sofia viewed them as work days with a possibility of being interrupted by a day off.

Over the years she had learned that realistic expectations were the key to avoiding disappointment, be it at work or home. She knew that if she packed a reserve day with activities that she or her family were looking forward to, only to have it all blown up because she was called to work, then they would all be let down at best. However, if she expected to work on a reserve day and chose to spend her pre‐work time getting a few things done or taking one of her grown children to lunch, then didn't get called in? Well, that was a bonus!

Sofia even had to admit that sometimes not getting called into work could be a disappointment. Her two kids were grown and out of the house and her husband, Scott, worked a normal schedule. This made her job all the more appealing. She was sure to meet interesting people, serve them, and keep them safe. It was a joy to her. She even viewed the occasional upset passenger or the people who treated her like a glorified waitress as welcome challenges.

“There's always a reason why people act like they do,” she knew. “Even when they themselves don't know the reason.”

On some short calls, Sofia had to pop out of bed and be at the airport on an hour's notice. On this fine morning, she had two hours' notice. “Another bonus,” Sofia thought gratefully. This allowed her to not have to short‐circuit her morning routine. She never skipped it; she simply had a modified version when the predictably unpredictable occurred. On occasion, Sofia entertained the thought of getting up at 3:00 a.m. on days she was on the early reserve line. That would mean she had time to get in her full “day prep,” as she called it, just in case the call came.

It didn't take much effort for Scott to persuade her to change her mind, especially since a 3:00 a.m. wake‐up time meant going to bed at 8:00 p.m. the night before. They both knew their unhurried morning routines were important because that time set the tone for the entire day. However, when discussing radical changes like this, Scott would say something like, “Let's not go all climb‐Kilimanjaro crazy,” or make some other goofy retort.

Scott was a dyed‐in‐the‐wool believer in discipline and commitment, but “lighten up, have fun, and don't take yourself too seriously” were among his core values. Scott and Sofia both knew that a clear awareness of your personal core values was critical for a purposeful, meaningful life. They helped you govern your thoughts and choices throughout any given day.

Why would they be important for companies and organizations and not individuals and families?

Sofia smiled as she thought of Scott. He was another thing to be grateful for. Daily.

She was also grateful for all she had learned over the years and, more importantly, applied to her life. For example, Sofia knew that it didn't matter if the short call came with one or two hours notice, waking her from a dead sleep or interrupting lunch with a friend, her expectations were always aligned with reality, so her reality would not become disappointment. She had learned a formula in a relationship book and it had always stuck with her: If E > R, then R = D.¹

If your expectations (E) are greater than your reality (R), then your reality (R) will equal disappointment (D).

Now, with her Rollaboard and backpack in tow, Sofia made her way toward the security line, knowing she had plenty of time to stop at the crew lounge before she needed to be at her gate. She enjoyed not rushing. Even more, she enjoyed the freedom of not worrying whether or not she packed everything she needed. Maybe one day she would get to thank the passenger² who shared his packing method with her on a leg from NYC to Indianapolis. She had adopted it as her packing SOP, standard operating procedure. In this case, it was simply a checklist of what she needed to pack. She had an SOP for a one‐day trip, two‐day trip, three‐day trip—whatever size trip. She always used it and therefore rarely forgot to pack anything.

Sofia smiled as she looked around at all of the faces loading luggage onto the X‐ray belt. She could tell that some were worried, some relaxed, some stressed, some joyful, some impatient, some moving slowly, and some moving fast. She noticed all of the different backpacks in various states of wear and tear, all carrying many different things.

With over 20 years in the travel industry, Sofia knew that there would be some folks who thought they had things in their backpack that were not there, and there would be other people who had items in their backpacks of which they were completely unaware. She remembered one passenger who had pulled a self‐help book out of his backpack. He had never seen the book before and, boy, was he ticked off! Someone had apparently snuck the book into his backpack, insinuating it was something he needed to read. The irony, which helped Sofia remember the event, was the title of the book: Self‐Awareness: The Key to Anger Management.

As she moved through the security line, Sofia watched the passengers. What adventures where they headed for? Had they packed everything they needed? Would what they were carrying in their backpacks create joy—or cause problems?

She smiled again. There was a quiet confidence that came from being aware of your baggage. That thought made her smile even more. Everybody had baggage; life had taught her that some people were aware of it and others were not.

Sofia enjoyed the personal peace that was rooted in the conscious awareness of exactly where every item in her backpack was located. This is also why she preferred a backpack over the tote used by most of her colleagues; all of the extra compartments helped her stay aware of where everything she needed was located—for the most part, anyway. There was always room for growth.

On every trip, Sofia consciously worked to improve her overall awareness of her backpack.

Royce Jefferson Smith sat a small corner table, enjoying his third cup of coffee and half‐reading The Wall Street Journal. His waitress was a kindhearted, single mother of two who called everybody, Hon. She filled his coffee cup while simultaneously asking, “Would you like a refill?” and she continuously offered a smile in spite of the fact that it was before 7:00 a.m. The name on her ID badge was Hope.

Royce knew these things about her because over the last 45 minutes he had simply asked. He thought, “It's easy to go through life so wrapped up in our own worlds that we forget to be friendly.”

That was not something he ever wanted to forget.

Royce smiled at being called, “Hon.” It reminded him of nicknames used by the waitresses for customers at his granddaddy's cafe when he was a kid: Hon, Sugar, Junior, and Lucky. They had given him all sorts of nicknames, too. Now, deep into adulthood, there were still not too many people who called him Royce.

For as long as he could remember, which, frankly, was a very long time, the majority of folks called him Buddy.

Like most kids from the south with that name, it stemmed from a slightly older sibling who couldn't quite say the word brother. Buddy didn't mind. He liked it better than his given name, which he liked to say had been passed down for “longer than an elephant could remember.” It went back generations ago, to a time when his family fled Germany under royal oppression. Their family's trouble had started when his grandfather with a whole lot of “greats” in front of it fell in love and wanted to marry a young woman in the monarch's family. A commoner wanting to marry a royal. With the marriage forbidden, they fled to Texas and, like many immigrants, changed their name in an attempt to better fit in. Schultz became Smith, and Royce, which in English origins meant royalty, was the name they gave to their firstborn son.

Buddy knew that names mattered. He knew the family he came from mattered. He also knew that in his day‐to‐day life, he was much more of a buddy than a royal.

By every airline standard, Buddy was a frequent flyer; but he preferred to think of himself as a frequent friend. People flew for a multitude of reasons to reach a greater multitude of places. The one thing they all had in common was that they needed a friend to give them encouragement and help them grow on this journey of life—even if that potential new friend was unaware of that need.

“Fact of life,” Buddy thought. “People need friends like a rooster needs the dawn.”

Buddy knew that every single encounter with every single person on every single day presented a single opportunity. He could make their day better, worse, or have no impact at all. Buddy preferred making things better.

Whenever possible, Buddy frequented the airport restaurants that were hometown originals, like his grandpa's place. While there, he enjoyed sitting just inside the fence that the restaurants used to cordon off their claim of terminal property; it gave him a great view of all of the travelers lugging all of their baggage. People‐watching was the reason for his partial attention to the financial news.

Buddy smiled as a young couple who had just rushed past his table simultaneously stopped and turned backwards with a panicked look, their eyes quickly scanning the crowd. Buddy smiled because he knew what they were looking for—he was hiding behind a potted tree just five feet from his table. Apparently a couple rushing to catch a plane expected their young son to keep up with them. And, apparently, the little boy got tired of trying to keep up. The boy's red and blue Spider‐Man backpack stuck out like a neon bar sign in a desert, which made hiding difficult.

Buddy thought “apparently” because he had learned over the years not to think that something was obvious, especially when it came to other people. One of the things Buddy knew to be true was that no matter how good you are at reading faces, you can never read someone's mind. Many relationships have been destroyed on the hill of the mind‐reading stance of, “I know exactly why you did that!” Though Buddy's interpretations were right more often than not, Buddy still thought the wiser mindset was to avoid concrete conclusions before you had all of the facts.

The little boy looked straight at Buddy with a look on his face that said, “I'm being sneaky. Please don't tell. This is fun.” Buddy gave him a big grin, a nod, and a wink. He turned toward the little boy's parents and with the boy now peeking at them around the tree and the parents catching the kind eyes of the gray‐haired man at the corner table, Buddy shared the location of their worry with a slight nod of his head. Buddy was pleased to see that, instead of getting upset with the boy, the parents realized that it was their own hurriedness that had caused him to fall behind.

Too many people, Buddy knew, were so focused on rushing to where they were going that they missed the important parts of where they were, or worse, the things they value that they were leaving behind.

It was that hurriedness that caused so many folks to forget to be friendly.

Many people love to people‐watch. Some to judge, some to laugh, some to learn. To Buddy, people‐watching was not entertainment; it was an education. And to him, it was more science than art. It was a conscious decision to study people and all of the baggage they dragged with them.

“Okay . . . it was a little entertaining,” he admitted to himself. “People are all different . . . and people are all the same,” Buddy thought. Everybody has a unique experience of life simply because we walk different paths, grow up in different situations, and see life through a personal perspective. Yet we all have so much in common. People have similar needs, like a purpose to live for and a desire to love and be loved. We have similar responsibilities, like stewarding our lives and caring for our neighbors.

And we all have struggles.

As has been said by many, life can be hard.

That is why we all need friends.

All different and all the same. It was like the announcement at the airport baggage carousel: “Many bags look alike. Please check your bag to make sure you are picking up the right one.”

“Fact of life,” Buddy thought. “All of us have baggage that we carry with us like a backpack. And every one of us needs a friend to help us with that backpack.”