A while back, I watched a documentary about the worst aviation disaster ever. And it gave me something to think about: Why did some people survive while the passenger next to them perished? And how can I keep the same effect from happening in my own life and career?
In 1977, on a foggy runway in the Canary Islands, a KLM 747 and a Pan Am 747 collided. Tragically, 583 people died. It remains the deadliest aviation accident in history.
The KLM jet took off just enough to clip the top off the parked Pan Am jet. It tumbled down the runway, killing everyone on board. Amazingly, though, some of the passengers on the Pan Am 747 survived. How they survived is something that fascinates me.
In an instant, the Pan Am passengers found themselves sitting in a flaming cabin. But the survivors did something that the victims didn’t: They got up and moved. A survivor said she watched a friend just sit there, frozen with terror. As the survivor leapt out of the cabin, she looking around, seeing dozens of people just sit there, burning to death. They were paralyzed by fear.
I’ve seen that phenomena in careers, too. People see things changing for the worse, but they just sit there hoping things will magically get better. They are terrified of the changes around them. They do the same thing over and over and expect different results (the definition of insanity, of course). And I’ve also seen people take the initiative and change before they end up becoming a statistic. This has happened over and over since the Great Recession began. What makes some people get busy and change while others sit and lose everything?
Newspaper editorial cartooning positions have nearly evaporated in the past decade (yes, I am very lucky to still be drawing and I know it). But that doesn’t mean that I am going to sit still in fear. I’m going to experiment at The Clarion-Ledger with new ways for you to enjoy my work (thankfully I’m in an environment where that is encouraged). And I’m going to continue to do radio, speeches, books and other writing, too. I may fail. But it ain’t going to be from sitting still. Because I know one thing for sure:
Change isn’t scary. It’s the grit that makes pearls.