Random Thoughts
Day 347 (19) – In the NYCk of Time
Well I’m back in NYC again, this time with a mission: find a place to live (but more on that tomorrow since that’s when I’ll actually be looking at apartments). In the meantime, let’s talk about the airport some more.
Whereas on my previous trips I arrived with plenty of time to spare before my flight, this time I cut it a little too close. Again my waking hour was 4:30am, but this time it was for a 6:45am flight out of Dayton. With the time it took to shower and drive up to the future Cincinnati suburb, I was walking into the airport at 6:15am. As I was impatiently waiting behind a group of senior citizens who clearly haven’t flown since their days at Kitty Hawk, I remembered why I like to try to be early to things – I don’t need the added stress related to potentially missing my flight.
By the time I arrived at my gate, the ticket takers were clearly giving me the “You’re the last one we’re waiting for” look, which threw me off a little as it was only 6:40am. But then when you consider 6:45 is when they want to be pulling out of the gate, and that there were only 8 other people on the plane, I guess they might be ready to leave as early as possible.
And as I sat there as the plane taxied, trying to de-stress a little (as I’m sure tomorrow will hold enough of that for me), I returned to an argument that I had with myself in college – Is it better to do the best you can at all times, or to get acceptable results with as little effort as possible? During my senior year at OSU, I went back and forth between trying to do my absolute best (and getting say a 99%, or 103% in some cases, for the quarter), or is it in a way smarter to do just enough to get a 94% to still get the ‘A.’ In the context of flying – do you get there just as the doors are closing, minimizing the time you spend waiting, or do you arrive early to account for any possible delays?
In the end, I think I’m the type of person that would rather have reduced stress resulting from overpreparation than to barely squeak by (and no that’s not a comment about my voice). Which is also why I don’t think I could ever cheat on someone I was dating, I don’t need the added mis-stress.
