The Long Way to a Short Point

(notes from monday eve. - been trapped in a painting wonderland for 3 days without wi-fi)

Boarding flight 248 with non-stop service up to Oakland CA.
A nice good evening to go flying.

(Oops, I forgot something. Can one give themselves shliach mitzvah gelt? Can you be your own shaliach?
Hmmmm…
I fold a dollar bill into the shape of an airplane and stick it in my pocket.)

~~~~

There are a bunch of places.
That when you fly to them.
You can tell what kind of place you’re headed to just by the passengers on the flight.

My flight is full of ultra cool slash punk slash ripped jeans slash tattooed peoples.
Typical SF crowd.

The dude in 2D looks more dead than alive with that spacey expression, almost begging me to wave my hand in front of his face to see if he’s awake or asleep.

I find seat 6C.
Some guy is in it.
Thanks a lot.
:)

Sitting back in the my most legroom in coach, you look good in leather jetblue seat, after ousting my would be seat robber, surrounded by an ultra individualistic, liberal, modern, liberated crowd of people…my brain starts a wanderin…

~~~~

I wonder how many people on this plane are happy.
It’s not everyday you know that I get to spend quality time with random fellow humans.

People usually compare their state of being with the people that surround them on a daily basis.

My own sheltered everyday week in los al ca. consists of me, my wonderful parents, my sister and awesome designer nechama, brother and fellow office-mate shmuel, my friends up on the hill, workmates, mailman (really nice guy), cleaning lady chella (um, yeah, gotta love her), my fave post office lady Bernadette and, of course, my secretary* who organizes my life, brings me coffee everyday, schedules my manicures and pedicures and takes care of all my affairs so I can spend more quality time with my pillow.

*(jk)

No really.
These are the people in my frame of reference.
So I can compare my state of being with them.

Am I happy compared to them?
Healthy?
Smart?
Giving?
Calm?

It's like when you graduate top of your high school thinking you're all that (because compared to your class you were a genius) but when you hit the real world, suddenly you're floundering near the bottom.

Your frame of reference just got seriously bigger.

I wonder how I rate compared to the happiness of the people on this plane.

This new crowd of folks from the enlightened north…
Are they happy?
Really happy.

~~~~

I just got my free credit report from Citi Bank today.
It seems the kind folks there want to protect my identity from being stolen.

Well, in the report there is also a rating that you get.
A credit score.
I don’t recall the exact number right this moment, but I scored somewhere around 730 credit points which is apparently good, but not great.

Then it goes on to say that my credit score is higher than 50% of Americans.
Pretty cool, huh?

Now.

Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a way to see where you rate on the totem pole of happiness compared to those around you?

Imagine if there was some sort of statistic that popped up at random times giving you random information about you and how you rate compared to the rest of the people you’re with.

Like sitting on the plane suddenly the screen in front of me would say “You are 95% happier than the rest of the passengers on this flight.”

Or “Compared to your seatmate your family scores 967 being that the person seated next to you has one estranged brother, no parents and an abusive step uncle.”

At a baseball game your ticket would say, “From the 10,000 people at this game your health is better than 85% of them.”

That would really help us appreciate our lives and what we were given.

How could I kvetch if I knew that my friends would be there for me 89% more than the friends of all the people on my block.

Or complain about my low score on lactose tolerance when the lady behind me at the grocery store is deathly allergic to wheat, sugar, salt and string beans…

Yes indeed.

I guess the only time we should compare ourselves to others is when it makes us grateful for what we have.