Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Perspective on a "bad day"

I flew Southwest Airlines a couple weekends ago. We often do because as you may know, they are the best at a lot of things. I'm a fan. However, I am not a fan of the current marketing for their business class.

The image that set me off was on the jetway leading to the plane. It is a picture of a woman's feet in red high heels. It appears she's walking the streets of a city, lets say New York. The heel of one of the shoes is breaking off of the shoe and it looks as if she may trip because of it. Above the image it simply says "Bad Day?".

Another is a living room scene, a bulldog is in the forefront with a cell phone in his mouth, buttons and electronics strewn on the floor around him. "Bad Day?", it asks.

And of course, it then proceeds to convince you that flying Southwest Bussiness Class is just what you need to cheer up your day.

Now... I'm not trying to be all high and mighty, because I certainly have days where the little things add up and make me want to pull my hair out. And yes, in those moments I would tell you about the "bad day" I'd be having.

But seriously? A broken high heel? A chewed up cell phone? I know it's just a marketing campaign, and a good one, if you're trying to encourage a self centered society to keep on feeling sorry for themselves and their shoe misfortunes.

You're probably thinking, "Alli.... if you wanted to rant on marketing campaigns, I can think of some worse ones than this". And it's really not that bad, but something about it hit a chord with me. I just stood there on the jetway thinking, "Bad day! You think that is a bad day?!"

Because I think of some of the Compassion kids whose bad day consists of a parent dying of AIDS, or having little to no food to eat. I think of the families in parkersburg, IA who lost their homes this last Sunday in a tornado. I think of the Chapman's, who just lost their little girl.

Those are bad days.

Just trying to keep perspective in the midst of an often skewed slew of media fireworks.

3 comments:

Jen said...

I agree. It was incredibly difficult for me when I returned from Africa....and when I open up my eyes everyday and try to see that my "bad day" isn't that bad.

Anonymous said...

Perspective is amazing isn't it?

Good thoughts. Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

Oh, Alli. You are so beautiful and sincere, I just stumbled across your blog, and just smiled as I read this. You have become a dear friend to me in recent months through your music. I "discovered" you through a friend, promptly ordered the complete collection of your works for missingink.com and have spent day after day being blessed with your beauty since then.

Hearts like yours make me glad to live on this crazy, frightening, spinning orb... just to rub shoulders and be blessed by the breath of God, as He moves and works among us through one clay vessell coming in contact with another.

Be blessed dear girl. I look forward to following your blog.