Sometimes, you need to stand still in order to move forward

Sometimes, you need to stand still in order to move forward. 

The other day I was  traveling from Johannesburg to Cape Town. The flight duration is normally just under two hours on a good day, on this particular day the flight left Johannesburg and halfway towards our destination the Captain announces that we are making good progress on the trip and all conditions (weather etc) are in order and a such we should reach our destination 15 minutes earlier than scheduled! Now for me it's always great news when a flight lands much earlier than expected, because that just means that one can get on the business of the day without delay. 

As I'm having a mini victory dance (in my head of course), I'm thinking "this is great, it will give me a head start in collecting my luggage, getting my rental car and generally sorting out all the necessary logistics and I will get to my meeting early, yippee..." 

About thirty minutes later, the speakers come on, interrupting my reverie, and naturally I am expecting to hear a voice that tells us that we will be landing in 10 minutes, to put our seats in the upright position, fold our tray tables, stow our hand luggage under our seats or in the overhead compartments above us blah blah blah (lol, i can almost hear the SAA lady making that announcement as I write this!). To my surprise, it's the Captain again, and instead he says: "dear passengers, we have just received a message from the control centre, there is an aircraft ahead of us, on our path, that is experiencing some difficulties and as such we cannot proceed to land and as such have been requested to enter a holding pattern (in essence this is flight jargon for a maneuver designed to delay an aircraft already in flight while keeping it in a specified airspace). In other words, this means that the aircraft remains in motion but makes no progress towards its destination until it is released and it's safe to do so.

So indeed as instructed, the pilots kept the flight stationary -in mid air- whilst waiting for the green light to proceed with landing.  In that ten minutes of standing still, heaven knows how many miles in the air, an interesting thought was delivered to me. And the thought was this: "As is the current case with this aircraft, sometimes it is necessary, in life, to stand still in order to move forward". Now I don't know if it was my phyisical proximity to the heavens (seeing that I was in an aircraft and suspended in the clouds) that inpired this epiphany- this moment of sudden revelation and insight?! Lol, probably not. I'm sure it was just my natural flair, perceptive prowess, analytical  outlook and  creativity that birthed that thought. Ok kidding once again. I digress. Back to the point. 

This moment got me thinking, thatst times as human beings we are always on the move. We set goals, targets with timeframes and we are just on the fast lane chasing that next target, chasing whatever dreams motivate us to wake up everyday. It may be different things that we are chasing, for some of us, it's career growth,  promotion, the next deal, the next job. For others  it may be chasing personal goals such having their own OPW, kids, or something. For others still it may be about chasing abstract and elusive concepts such as happiness, success, peace, fulfillment etc. Or perhaps if you are like me,it's about moving towards the realization of a combination of the above-mentioned and more!

As human beings, naturally, we are born to want to achieve more, break boundaries, push, succeed and that is absolutely ok. Equally, it is also absolutely ok to, at certain levels, stand still, take stock, amend your plans if need be, and then move forward to your "landing strip".

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