By Maria Marin
03 Aug 2024, 11:32 AM EDT
A few days ago I was going to San Diego, California to give a motivational talk to more than 300 women. When I was about to board the plane they announced that the flight was delayed. An hour passed and then they said that the mechanics were still fixing the problem and that they couldn’t give us an estimate of when it would be fixed. After another hour of waiting they said: “We are doing everything possible to resolve this situation. If necessary, we will look for another plane.”
Anxiety gripped the passengers, including me. I was worried that I might not make it to my lecture on time. One of the passengers who was also waiting for the flight said out loud: “I am not getting on that plane. I am a maths teacher and I know the law of probability well. It says that something you try to fix twice and it doesn’t work will surely have problems later.”
Until that moment, I had not thought that the plane was going to crash, but his comment created fear among those of us who heard it. And the worst thing is that I had to take that flight, even if the plane was missing a wing. A young woman said: “Oh my God, I am not getting on that plane.” Another woman commented: “This reminds me of a flight that was going from Brazil to France and crashed with more than 200 passengers.”
On the other hand, a man asked: “Will we still have time to buy life insurance?” I felt obliged to bring positivity to the boarding gate. I stood up and addressed the group as if I were on stage: “I am not a ‘mathematician’, but I do know that the chances of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 11 million, so nothing bad is going to happen to us.”
And so it happened, after five hours of waiting we boarded and we all arrived safe and sound in San Diego. Just as this professor opened his mouth to create insecurities, you will always come across negative people who discourage you. Never allow others to infect you with their pessimism!
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