The Art of Waiting in Line

I arrived in JFK mid afternoon and the line at immigration was about a thousand miles long, or at least it looked that way, there was the longest line I have ever seen. After a eight hour flight, the two hour and forty minute wait to get to the head of the queue, was a long wait indeed. I was however a good opportunity to practise being relaxed and patient, especially as I was in just as much a hurry as everyone else. But, I am delighted to announce I wasn’t angry, unlike the man with the bulging veins in his neck, who managed to look as though he had just won the World Lemon Sucking Contest by some margin.

Any attempt at conversation were repelled by strangled angry words of indignant disgust, so I gave up, and got my book out, and read over 100 pages before getting to the head of the queue myself. The immigration officer I went to had a cheery smile to greet me, and when I asked if there was a two for one offer on at the moment she laughed and told me in the height of the summer it was like this every day.

Everytime we meet another person we have a choice. Which is to make it a positive experience for the other person or not. To make sure that we take responsibility for how we are feeling and make sure that any anger, gloom or grumpiness is kept in check. I thought about the immigration official, who must see many 100’s of people every week, with the whole range of human emotion on display, from years of travel I have found that immigration officials are not hired by the tourist board of their nations, so being friendly and cheery are not part of the job. In fact most are very professional and very poker faced most of the time, so to find this friendly smiling
person, was a joy. Which is also a choice, I guess.

So chose to make others feel good about themselves and do your best to be your best, I guess is the lesson for us all.