I always check a bag and my carry-on bag is so small that it goes under the seat in front of me.  Just couldn’t imagine getting involved in a squabble over overhead bin space while boarding a plane.  My jacket will fall nicely over someone else’s checked bag in the bin.  My travel habits won’t change over twenty-five smackers.  Do I begrudge the airline a profit?  Well, No. I actually like them having a sufficient budget for airplane repairs when needed. .   I recall seeing an episode of “Mayday” whereby a plane went down because the airline was too cash strapped to conduct repairs without cutting corners.    That money comes from money charged to passengers because that’s where their revenue is derived.  It comes from the service they provide you, the passenger.  In capitalist North America, we have the opportunity to vote with our feet.  Don’t fly.  Find a new airline.  Boycott for a period.  Voice  your displeasure in a manner which detrimentally affects their bookings.  Take a bus.  Hitchhike.  Beg for a ride on kijiji.  You get the picture.  Your world won’t crumble over $25.  In fact, reallocate the wasted funds from the duty free shop and you’re back on par. Enjoy the excitement at the carousel upon arrival.  Maybe find a new love by feigning the retrieval of some lovely ladies luggage as it drops from the chute.

If not careful in this information age, one can become overexposed to the phenomenon of what I like to call “inspiration deadening” and consequently one must continually strengthen one’s immunization from  negativity in order to keep the success path flowing.  The mind requires exercise in order for it to filter out meaningless chatter from useful data.  Unfortunately, most people’s filtering mechanism is weak and subject to anything and everything it encounters.  Instead of whizzing through uninterruptedly, extraneous information gets absorbed, digested and interpreted in a context where it doesn’t belong.  An excessive manifestation of such mind activity contributes to paranoia like behavior.

Dr. Robert Cialdini is his book “Influence” makes reference to the power of a collective pattern of behaviors when ascribing a typical response anticipated from a new cast of characters.  Without citing the numerous examples highlighted by Cialdini, people are unfortunately drawn into behaviors principally because of other’s responses first without exercising their own cognition in interpreting events.  Advertisers love you!  A purchasing decision is apparently directly correlated with star power given the endorsement money paid to celebrities and athletes. You love companies because you follow the stars.  You are influenced highly according to Dr. Cialdini.

The bigger question then goes begging, if you are so significantly influenced, what does this say about your own personal power when it comes to exercising intuition about your strengths unbeknownst to the influencers?

At any instant in time someone is writing something negative on the internet and you are either purposefully ignorant of its message, open to suggestion but off line, reading and filtering, or reading and absorbing.  You’ve perhaps already experienced family forces from an alien domain.

Your potential is huge but it can be eroded through suggestion from people who have no business entering the passageway to your glorious self revelation.  You are developing your own personal protocol for immunization from negativity.

Was strolling through the Eau Claire market in here in Calgary yesterday afternoon and there he was sitting by himself on a bench in the middle of the Eau Claire market.  I couldn’t believe it.  Walked about 10 feet past and thought, that couldn’t really be Joe Clark – a Prime Minister with one of the shorter tenures to power in our country’s history.  Turned back and introduced myself and thanked him for his public service.  I sat briefly and he turned the conversation directly to me asking about what I do and where I’m from.  Upon mentioning that I was born in Red Lake, I thought of the few folks who know where this is, he just may given his travels throughout his political career.   He had indeed but before we could follow up, Maureen was waving him on as she exited a shop.