Emergency Gum

☕ Sunday Briefing – Issue #059

One of the instructors in training stood in front of the classroom and asked a simple question.

“What’s the first thing you do during an emergency?”

Hands immediately shot into the air.

“Fly the airplane,” one person answered.

“Memory items,” someone else called out.

“Run the checklist.”

We were all certain we knew where he was going.

He smiled, shook his head, and said, “Wrong.”

“You scream.”

The room erupted in laughter.

“Then you reach into your pocket, pull out your emergency gum, chew it for a minute…” He paused just long enough for all of us to picture it. “…and then you get to work.”

There was no emergency gum, of course.

The lesson wasn’t about chewing gum. It was about interrupting that overwhelming urge to react before you actually understand what’s happening. The first thing you fight during an emergency isn’t the airplane. It’s yourself.

That lesson has stayed with me far longer than I expected because I’ve realized how often life feels like a cockpit full of warning lights.

A conversation doesn’t go the way we hoped. A text lands harder than it should. The market drops. A child melts down five minutes before bedtime. Someone says something that catches us off guard, and before we’ve even figured out what they meant, we’ve already decided how we’re going to respond.

If I’m being honest, my default setting has never been patience. I’ve fired off messages I wish I’d slept on. I’ve replayed conversations that probably weren’t as significant as I made them out to be. I’ve tried solving tomorrow’s problems before today was even over. More often than not, I wasn’t responding to what had actually happened. I was responding to the story I’d already started telling myself.

The older I get, the more I notice how often time changes my perspective without changing the circumstances. Problems that felt enormous on Tuesday somehow shrink by Thursday. The opportunity that felt impossible to pass up doesn’t seem nearly as urgent after a night’s sleep. The comment that bothered me all evening turns out to have been harmless, or at least not worth carrying around as long as I did.

Not because the world changed.

Because I did.

That’s something aviation understands remarkably well. The crews who handle emergencies with calm precision aren’t calm because they’re fearless. They’re calm because they’ve learned not to let emotion make the first decision. Training creates just enough space for judgment to catch up before action takes over.

I’ve started wondering how many parts of life deserve a piece of emergency gum. Maybe it’s the email you’re about to send. Maybe it’s the purchase you’re convinced you have to make today. Maybe it’s the argument that suddenly feels less important after a walk around the block. Maybe it’s simply taking one slow breath before assuming the worst about someone else’s intentions.

Of course, there are moments that demand immediate action. Pilots don’t actually stand around chewing gum when an engine fails, and life occasionally asks the same of us. Eventually, you have to move. But there’s a difference between moving with purpose and reacting on instinct, and that difference often determines whether we solve the problem or become part of it.

As another week comes to a close, maybe that’s something worth carrying into Monday. The next alarm you hear may not be as urgent as it feels. The next decision may become clearer if you give yourself a little space before making it. Sometimes wisdom looks a lot like patience, and sometimes all we really need is a piece of emergency gum.

Until the next leg,

Jake

First Officer, Dad, Human Trying Not to Stall