Grow powerful, don't become a weakling with power.

Helplessness - Adventure in the jungle, part 1

Helplessness, this is how the beginning of my adventure felt like.

Malaysia was waiting for me, for two weeks adventure in the rainforest. There, I shall watch wildlife, immerse myself in the oldest rainforest in the world, and fulfil a childhood dream.

But one day before leaving, all these dreams took a serious beating. One of my flights got cancelled, and no one seemed to give any alternative.

I had booked the flights with an internet agency (Booking). For the outward journey, it had arranged three different flights with two different airlines. When the first flight (operated by Air Europa) got cancelled, they rescheduled another one that didn’t connect with the second flight (operated by Turkish Airlines).

From the very beginning, I was smelling that something strange was happening.

Over the years, I had travelled worldwide, hunting the cheapest flight available to do so. This put me in uncomfortable but (at that time) interesting situations like sleeping in airports, rushing to change airports on my own in the same city to pick the next flight… Sometimes doing it even for less than €30 of difference in price. A solution I found when I didn’t have much money, and I had a burning desire to experience interesting places. It was fun, but I now want to invest my energy otherwise.

So, this time, I had bought (apparently) good flights, with enough stopover time etc. To my surprise, when the first flight was cancelled, no one was solving the issue.

I was receiving a cancelation information from Air Europa, to then redirect me to Turkish Airlines which, at the same time, was redirecting me to Booking and back again to Turkish Airlines. I was feeling that I had encountered a bug for which no-one would take responsibility about it. And anger start to build up as fire inside me.

I am perfectly (rationally) aware that we live in a world in which few take full responsibility about things, many don’t even try. Regarding companies, airlines are among the worst, which usually run with impunity when their over-optimized schedules and business models affect people. They also play the game until the end, knowing that many customers can’t afford to proceed to a trial (I have done it before), although some regulations and internet companies makes it easier now.

Also, I had no doubt that I would find a solution. Having solved much worse problems and previous similar experiences gave me the confidence to be at peace.

But, even if I rationally knew that this is life and I had the confidence to find a solution, I was still feeling frustration, anger & helplessness. Meaning meant that I had still a lesson to learn.

More precisely, these emotions tell me that I was not being able to deal with a repetitive problem, that I was perceiving a trespassing and lack of power. “I am feed up with taking responsibility about the work that others had not properly done”, was a sentence that I repeated inside.

So, what can and wanted to do with this?

My angers first reaction was ‘they will see, I will destroy them’.

But this is just a reaction. And by reacting I am playing the same game, wasting my energy. Moreover, anger is like fire, it can burn you and everything around you, including things you love. I was too angry to transform it, so I found a save place to let it go.

My ego said, ‘I will become powerful and no one is going to touch me’.

But, this is seeking power from a position of weakness, usually behaving like a child (or a tyrant) trying to mold the world to your image. It is related to the ego. You may get power, but you are weak.

The point is neither to resignate that

But I don’t want to behave like a cynic that doesn’t believe in people and relentlessly pursues power. As long as I don’t have power, I must accept that . However, accepting a fact doesn’t mean doing nothing about it, acceptance is very different from resignation.

The answer is to grow powerful without becoming a cynic.

And this kind of power has little to do with becoming invulnerable. It has little to do with pursuing status, money… to do whatever you want.

The power I am talking about is learning to play with the rules of the game by your own values.

It is about having the emotional, mental and material tools to navigate life. It leverages things like money, it understands human biases for status and the like; and uses them, but without identifying with them. It also grows and serves communities that support each other, because it knows that life is unjust and hard. True power is humane.

In this particular case, I made some adjustments:

• I have never bought a flight insurance so far. From now on I will consider this possibility, specially for expensive flights or plans such us this one to which are particularly important for me.

• I will also consider flying with better companies, I want to reduce my energy lost in this kind of issues, plus giving the money to companies that do a better job.

• I make a conscious decision to adjust my expectations. To understand that airlines doing airline things is part of the game and not to be surprised about them.

• And whenever something like this happens, looking for time and energy efficient solutions to make a claim (as I have already done). Not expecting that justice would be made (I learned that this is not the case from previous issues with airlines). But as a way to make things a little bit more difficult to the incompetent and shameless. Nowadays, there are good internet companies that charge you according to the value they provide, which is very in line with my philosophy, and minimizes the energy I invest while working for a greater good.

Every setback, small as it may seem, is an opportunity to grow powerful.