I kind of love airports. Do you?

I feel a person might adopt any persona they wish in an airport. And, they might buy magazines they’d never ordinary deem worthwhile purchases, to boot.

There’s a lot about air travel, and, indeed, travel in general, that is out of one’s control, and that feels like it often comes down to a stroke (or not!) of luck when navigating various iterations of bureaucracy.

You might experience an understanding stewardess, or you might be randomly selected for an additional security screening. You might be forced to check a bag, or you might be unexpectedly upgraded.

The pressure is on. Minutes and seconds matter immensely.  You feel hopeful but vulnerable; hoping you did everything right, vulnerable knowing you’re ultimately at the mercy of forces outside of your control.

Something about the whole affair makes me think it’s meant to be a larger metaphor for life.

Imagine yourself in an airport; you probably can. The first leg of your trip severely delayed, you find yourself rushing through the airport in attempts to make the connecting flight. You’re sweating, flustered, deeply aware of the fact that you are the person running through the terminal.

What you’re carrying, and what you fundamentally believe about yourself and your life is the determinant of everything that might follow.

If you are centered in the present, and you put your faith in positivity and prosperity, the plane is held for you.

But, if you’re dragging around a load of baggage from the past–if you have to pause every two minutes to readjust your grip and redistribute all that weight–if you waste precious moments turning back to look at it and ensure you haven’t lost anything in the rush–and especially if you discover you have and then have to go back and retrieve it, well, you’re going to miss that flight.

See, the universe is really on your side. It wants to propel you forward, ensure things go smoothly, and assist you in getting you where you to need to be in order to contribute for the good of all. It is not still hung up on what has happened in your past: how you’ve behaved poorly, rashly, or without kindness, or how you’ve been the recipient of another’s cruelty. The universe is the one entity perpetually capable of indulging you in fresh starts.

The only reason why it feels as though the chips are stacked against you, and like you can’t escape patterns or dynamics from your past is because it’s what you’re channeling. You are the one slowing yourself down by dragging around all that baggage. You are the one creating a negative reality. The world is merely responding to what you’re putting out.

The stewardess might as well be granting your every wish.

If you believe that the chips are perpetually stacked against you, that no one has it rougher than you, warm up your waving hand, because the closest you’ll get to that plane is watching it pull away from the gate without you.

If you believe you’ll just scrape by in life–that your destiny is to get a taste of the good life while having to constantly put up with ridiculous ironies, well then congratulations, your unconsciously self-selected back-row-of-the-plane-that-might-as-well-be-in-the-toilet-seat just opened up for you. You’ll make the flight, and laugh at your poor, poopy luck the whole trip.

On the other hand, if you believe the universe is powerfully at work in your favor, because you are a person of integrity and goodness, after all, prepare for departure. If you intend for your life to be a majestic composition, to be equal parts give and take, and to be filled, first and foremost with love in all forms–if, even though there is every opportunity to doubt, you trust in the alignment of timing and in the forces bigger than you working in your favor as you work from and for good–your seat, my friend, will undoubtedly be 1A, where a small glass dish filled with warmed, salted almonds and a complimentary thermal blanket await.