Accept the things we cannot change ...

I was on a flight from Beijing to Tokyo - ordinarily a two-hour journey - but on this occasion, we were stuck at Beijing airport for seven hours, with all passengers onboard. No one was at fault. The sky wore a blanket of dense clouds, seemingly innocuous to the untrained eye, but the control tower knew better. The weather condition was deemed unsafe for us to take off, and so we waited, our patience waning as the sky darkened into the late hours. My subsequent flights to San Francisco and then onto Seattle had to be rescheduled. The atmosphere was understandably tense. However, most passengers grudgingly accepted the situation, busying themselves with various distractions. The flight attendants served dinner while we were grounded. "This is a first for me - serving dinner on the ground, even after a decade in the service," one of them jovially declared. We laughed. A young man in his early twenties, however, was far from being amused. He was talking angrily over his mobile phone, his voice carrying across the cabin. He called his mother for booking the "wrong" flight and seat, lamented to his aunt about missing out on Tokyo's famed Udon noodles, and expressed his frustration to his cousin about his bad luck. "I feel like I want to hit someone." He yelled at one time. Thankfully, he didn't act on his words. The one-sided drama unfolded over the hours, his voice providing a steady backdrop of discontent. Eventually, I'd had enough. I decided to drown out his tirade by plugging in my headphones, cranking up my music, and prayed.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

We touched down in Tokyo at 2 am. I checked into a hotel room and enjoyed a peaceful night's sleep. Awakening refreshed, I savored my Japanese Kaisen Donburi (Seafood Rice Bowl) before taking a lovely stroll along the picturesque river bank of Kawasaki city. To my delight, I discovered I could catch a direct afternoon flight to Seattle.

In the end, it wasn't that bad at all!