Staying on Top When Your World's Upside Down

“Remember, if you have a problem, it’s your problem. Solve it. Don’t blame other people. Don’t burden people with your complaints. Ninety percent of the people you meet don’t care about your troubles. The other 10 percent are glad you have them.”
Lou Holtz: Winning Every Day

I was in my seat on an airplane one day when a muscle man bursting out of a Gold’s Gym tank top came strutting down the aisle with a mean scowl on his face and took the seat in front of me. If he’d been green he could have auditioned for the part of The Hulk. I wasn’t the only person on the plane thinking to myself – now there is one strong dude!

Then he pulled out his cell phone and, right before my eyes, the man who would have us all believe he was a hulk transmogrified into a crybaby. His previous flight had been delayed and they hadn’t put him in first class and because of the short connection he hadn’t had time to go to Starbucks and now had to drink the regular coffee that regular people drank on airplanes and – it went on and on. From the time he sat down until they closed the airplane door, causing him to complain that he couldn’t finish his list of complaints, he pouted and whined. Poor baby!

This man’s physical strength was a whole lot less impressive when it was illuminated by his obvious moral weakness. The world had not bent over backward to make his life easier and more comfortable and it was everyone else’s fault but his. It would have been funny had it not been so pathetic.