Is your nose up or down?

Are you banking left or right?

How’s your speed? Your thrust? Your position?

In the world of aircraft, it’s all about your attitude, the combination of which direction the plane is pointed and the settings of the other systems of the plane. You might be climbing, you might be diving, you might be stalling — it all depends on your attitude.

Likewise, many things depend on your psychological attitude as well, not just your viewpoint, which many seem to cite. The emotion with which you approach a situation is important, don’t get me wrong, but so are other aspects, like your preparation, your determination, drive, willingness to risk, and ability to improvise just being a few. You can’t
fly
a plane
simply by pointing
it “up”You can’t fly a plane simply by pointing it “up”, nor can you pilot a successful life by simply attempting to be positive about everything.

Nothing grates on my nerves more than the perpetual happymonger who insists on spreading fucking joy into every crack of existence just for the sake of being the ray of sunshine up everyone’s ass. Anyone who sees past this can easily point out the many different flaws in this system of constant cheer — life isn’t always pleasant, and being happy isn’t always productive. Sometimes it’s very applicable to the situation; many times it isn’t. Having someone shove that down your throat constantly just ends up labelling them as the eternal jackass.

Is this a matter of attitude? Clearly not. Pure emotion is usually extremely dumb. Attitude is smart — it is your emotional state plus all the above components, arranged in a manner such that when the bumps and struggles of your situation do hit you full-force, your airspeed doesn’t fall so far that you drop out of the sky. The way you initially formulate and interactively adjust your attitude shows a lot about your ability to handle life situations with intelligence and experience.

The Attitude Captain amongst us will evaluate every possible aspect of the situation, assess them all with objectivity and fairness, and then approach with their attitude adjusted, having their pieces in place to make a successful go at it. The Captains are also sharp enough to know the limits of their planes; if things won’t hold up in a hard turn, they know better to use some other aspect to replace what that hairpin turn would have gotten them. If they get halfway into a loop and find out they don’t have enough speed to keep going, they can quickly grab their other resources, realign them, and get out with all engines still turning over.

These I envy. They are the ones who simply radiate confidence and assuredness in life, the people you admire from afar in a crowd, even if you have never met them. Their attitudes are pointed in the right direction, and all their settings are within the green. I often long to know their secret, because some of them fly so far and hard and fast and never catch ground.

No two airplanes are built the same. Likewise, your craft might be big or small. Your engines may be tiny, but you are able to easily make turns. Maybe your powerhouses are huge, but you can’t stop on a dime. But all of us have the ability to use what we have to get where we want to go and to get there safely and smartly.

Pilot on first runway, you are cleared for take-off en route to the rest of your life. Safe travels.