The right thing

This quote passed through my awareness in a quiet moment tonight.

"We need to try to do the right thing every time, to perform at our best, because we never know which moment in our lives we'll be judged on. 

Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger

  My current job is teaching air traffic control to new students at the FAA's academy in Oklahoma.  (Truth be told we actually just get them started here on a what can be a 3+ year journey to becoming a controller, but you have to start somewhere.)  The quote came to mind when I was thinking about what lay ahead for my students, and what impact I might have on that.  My influence might only be minor, as in, "Hey, you remember that funny instructor who used to make up his own weird phonetic alphabet?"  But I also recognize that I have the potential to say something to a student that could change the way they see things. And that might lead to some event in a year or three or twenty that could change the world, or as is more likely in our profession, that could prevent a tragic change in the world.  Few of us will be presented with as clear and dramatic a moment of truth as Captain Sullenberger, but we will all have our moment.  For most of us it's likely to come and go without our even knowing it.  The idea is just to be ready.