Who
packed your parachute?
Sometimes in the daily challenges that
life gives us, we miss what is really
important. We may fail to say hello,
please, thank you, congratulate someone
on something that has happened to them,
give a compliment, or just do something
nice for no reason.
Charles
Plumb, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate,
was a jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75
combat missions, his plane was destroyed
by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb
ejected and parachuted into enemy hands.
He was captured and spent six years in a
communist prison. He survived the ordeal
and now lectures on lessons learned from
that experience.
One day,
when Plumb and his wife were sitting in
a restaurant, a man at another table
came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You
flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the
aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were
shot down!”
“How in the
world did you know that?” asked Plumb.
“I packed
your parachute,” the man replied.
Plumb
couldn’t sleep that night, thinking
about that man. He wondered how many
times he might have seen him and not
even said good morning, because you see,
he was a fighter pilot and the man was
just a sailor. Plumb thought of the many
hours that sailor had spent in the
bowels of the ship, carefully weaving
the shrouds and folding the silks of
each chute, holding in his hands each
time the fate of someone he did not
know.
Now Plumb
asks his audience, “Who is packing your
parachute?”
As you go
through your week, month, and even each
© 2005, recognize and appreciate the
people who have packed your parachute
and supported your life.
So now, I
have a challenge for you. For the next
24 hours, 7 days a week, find something
good to say to absolutely everyone who
crosses your path. If you study someone
long enough, you can always find
something good to say. You might have to
study some longer than others, but it
can be done. If you do this for me for
one week, by the end of that week, it
will become easier, and the week after
that, you will begin doing it for
yourself. By the end of the third week,
you will have established a habit into
your life. Your life will change
immediately, because people like to be
around other people who make them feel
good about themselves. And your circle
of friends and acquaintances will grow
very quickly.
Remember: we
were not put on this earth to live
alone, but to reach out to others.
--Author
Unknown
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