Time flies...wisdom on an airline serviette.

A lone bird flies over Arbroath harbour this morning, at sunrise.

Sometimes, some of life's best wisdom lands on your lap...literally. En route here, the flight attendant passed a needed cup of coffee with a serviette - I gripped the precious and well-needed java but the napkin fluttered down and onto my lap. Retrieving it and placing it (neatly) on the fold down table, I noticed the writing on one side. It read:

Time flies, but you are the pilot.

I was struck by the simplicity of these words, and depth of truth that they contain. Time does "fly". Whatever is happening in our lives, time moves forward - with or without us. We can be left in the swirling eddies of its passage, tossed and turned, or we can remember that we are in the proverbial "left seat" - we're the pilot-in-command of our lives.

Of course, stuff happens in life that is often beyond our control - but we're the ones sitting at the controls on the flight deck. We can choose how to respond. Pilots have a mantra when things are not going well: Aviate (keep flying), Navigate, and Communicate. Works in life too. It's all about remembering that even though time flies, we are always the pilot.

It's the same in a sea kayak. The sea state will be what it will be...but it's the paddler who holds the paddle, adjusts the skeg, and makes the decisions about whether or not that is really where we should be.

The words on the serviette make for excellent wisdom.

Coffee was good too. :)

Duncan.