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Who is packing your parachute? Whose parachute are you packing?

Something that we so often miss in this rushed life of ours is that while we are all individuals we are all interconnected. While we strive to be independent, responsible for our own actions, we are at the same time totally interdependent and reliant on the actions of others. Whatever happens to one person has an effect, one way or another, on all others. What ever one person does has an effect one way or another on all others.

The fact that you can do your job is normally only because others have done theirs. You are constantly relying on other people to do their bit. Can they rely on you to do yours? Often we get so blinded by our own sense of importance that we fail to acknowledge the contributions made by others. To bring things into perspective make a list of all the things that you do every day. How many of those activities involve the input of someone else? What do you think would happen if they chose not to make that input or if they made it badly?

This story will illustrate this interconnectedness and interdependence. Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy lands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, " I know you. You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk and you were shot down!"

"That's right, but how did you know that?" asked Plumb. "I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise. The man shook his hand and said, "I guess it worked!" "It sure did." Plumb gratefully assured him. "If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

Plumb says that he couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. He thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, each time holding in his hands the fate of someone he didn't know. He says, "I kept wondering how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor."

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail, to say hello, to say please, or thank you,  to congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them,  to give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

Take time to recognise and acknowledge the people who pack your parachute. Be grateful for the contribution that they have made. Take time to question your own actions. Can others rely on the parachutes that you are packing for them? Take time to acknowledge the interconnectedness and interdependence of all individuals. Keep these questions constantly in your mind "Who is packing your parachute? Whose parachute are you packing?"

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