The Main Thing Is Working, So Why Aren’t You Happy?

I was flying to New York recently when the woman sitting next to me grew increasingly frustrated that her television screen wasn’t working.  She was forcefully pushing every button and practically slapping the screen trying to revive it.

The woman stopped a flight attendant and with great exasperation announced, “Nothing is working!”

The flight attendant stopped, looked at her, took a deep breath and said, “Nothing is working? Ma’am, we are 33,000 feet in the air, flying in a metal box with wings that will get us to our destination in just a couple of hours. The plane is working just fine and isn’t that the main thing?”

With that, she turned to continue the beverage and snack service but her words kept ringing in my ears.

Sure, it would be nice if the entertainment system was working. Certainly, it would enhance the trip if the Wi-Fi was functioning properly. But even when they aren’t, as long as the plane is working, that’s the main thing, and we shouldn’t lose that perspective.

We are living in incredibly blessed times. We have comforts, conveniences, amenities, luxuries that our ancestors couldn’t dream of. Living with indoor plumbing, electricity, cars, planes, smartphones, FaceTime, Waze… each new thing is a game changer that transforms the quality of our lives in ways we don’t fully appreciate.

With the advancements of medicine, we have not only longevity, but do you realize how routinely we recover from illness and survive some circumstances that previously would threaten life? Consider that in the 1600’s the lifetime risk of dying in childbirth was 4 percent. For every 100 births, 4 young women would die in the process. While bearing a child still carries risks, it is far, far safer than it was even just a hundred years ago.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not minimizing the pain of childbirth or the challenge of aching knees or hips, or even the frustration of slow Wi-Fi. However, as Stephen Covey writes in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing,” and the main thing is that the airplane is working, our heart is beating, a healthy child was born, and a mother survived.

We shouldn’t deny our feelings when something hurts or when we are injured physically, emotionally, or spiritually. We can lean into the pain, cry and even complain for a bit. But let’s not lose perspective or allow our entire outlook and experience to be clouded or defined by what is missing, hurting, or frustrating, especially when the “main thing” is still working.

The gematria, the numerical value of the Hebrew word modim, gratitude, is 100. This is an indication of the custom to give thanks say a blessing at least 100 times a day. Beginning with the gift of waking up in the morning, with each food and drink we can enjoy and ingest and with every successful trip to the bathroom, each day we stop ourselves one hundred times to say a blessing, to say thank you God that with whatever else is going on, the main things are still working.

Remember, the main thing is the main thing and be grateful when the main thing is working.