“Stop staring at the instrument panel,” my flight instructor called, finger pointing to the blue stretch of sky beyond the windshield. “Everything that can kill you is out there. So is everything that makes flying worth it.”
I lifted my eyes from the cockpit’s gauges and took in the view. He was right.
Student pilots tend to become fixated on the plane’s inside when learning to fly. Ignore the altimeter and you can drop 500 feet without realizing it. Disregard the course indicator and get a few degrees off your bearing, you may find yourself 100 miles off your intended destination when traveling long distances.
The gauges are important, but experienced pilots glance briefly at these instruments so they can focus most of their attention on the world outside the cockpit. Some of that world contains things that can ruin your day… storm clouds, oncoming planes, the ground coming up fast.
But most of the world beyond the cockpit is a magical tableaux that makes flying worth the enormous effort required to learn. Most student pilots don’t pay hard-earned money to learn to fly because they want to stare at a cluster of instruments. They learn because they are eager to soar above the whitewashed cloud tops that are infinitely more intriguing than their shadowed underbellies. They make the effort because few things are as calming as the glint of morning sunlight off a mirrored lake below. They remember why flying is important each time they take off over treetops to see blue spill onto the fertile earth on a distant horizon.
Of course, there is much on the ground that makes life worth living as well. But I wonder if some of us spend way too much time inside the cockpit of our minds instead of focusing on the world outside? Stay inside your head too much and fear, doubt, and uncertainty grow disproportionately. Allow them to swell and they rob us of action. When robbed of action, we rob ourselves of fulfilling lives. Who among us hasn’t at one time grumbled about some tremendous obstacle blocking our way? But if we persevered, we later realized the boulder in our path was merely a stepping stone to a better life. I’ve done it. And spending too much time inside my head mistakenly transformed that stepping stone into a boulder.
We need what’s between our ears to help guide us in life, from small course corrections to critical decisions. But to find true success in life, at some point we have to get out of our heads and engage the world around us. When you do, it’s yours for the taking.
I laugh and smile as I ponder what you’ve written. In an age when everyone is looking down – at their electronic device – the world is in front of them and it invites engagement and participation. As business people we are always asking "what’s on your dashboard? What are the three or four most important things you look at daily to determine how your business is?" Then we get this gentle admonition to look up, not down. Thanks Chris.
Thanks, Joel. It just feels better too, to lift our eyes from the gadgets and instruments and take in nature’s sights. Glad you stopped by.
i recently read a quote, attributed to Mark Twain, about the value of travel… “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Sometimes it’s a change in environment that reminds us to look and see more than our own inner world.
So appropriate, Kim.
Fear can definitely cripple. I was once intent on staying safe and finishing my work career at the hospital located in Butner. I went outside my comfort zone and started working in Raleigh. So glad I did!
And it was probably much easier to accomplish, when looking back at it, than you thought it would be before you started, right?
Pleased to see you’re back at your blogs and flying high 🙂
Good to be back! 🙂