How Would You Want To Be Treated?

I am trying to make my blog better and more interesting for the people that follow what I am doing. In the process, I have been looking around the internet to see what others are doing and came across a post I wanted to share with everyone.

A blog called Handicap This which follows the travels of a man named Mike Berson, who is a quadriplegic mixed with Cerebral Palsy. He and his friend Tim Wambach have a stage show that they perform. The show is a powerful look at friendship, breaking down barriers, living with disabilities and, most of all, about living to your potential.

Their post from March 2016 of a flight they took on United Airlines beautifully illustrates the idea of asking yourself “How would I want to be treated?”. In the post, they tell about how one pilot and a host of other employees from United Airlines went out of their way to make this trip work for Mike. I commented on the post and told them that I would love to see more people use the internet to tell of good things that happen instead of racing to a computer or a phone to rant about something bad happening. It seems that usually there is a slew of circumstances that cause problems and its almost always not the fault of the person you are dealing with in the moment. They just happen to be the face of the company that is working at that moment.

In this excerpt you can see how deciding to try your best to help out a fellow human can make a situation go a lot differently.
Mike, being a trooper, wanted to soldier on and get on this plane. We decided that going backwards would be our best bet getting Mike into his seat. My job was to hold Mike’s feet as he was being pulled through the aisle. Eric, the pilot, was behind me. When we reached Row 3, we found out that the arm rest did not move up, making the lift out of the aisle chair and into his seat a difficult transfer. Row 4’s arm rest did move up, so we decided that going back one more row was more than worth it. When we got there, the pilot asked if he should help lift Mike into his seat. The only problem was that there wasn’t any room other than climbing over 2 rows of seats to get there. What did our pilot do? You guessed it, Eric climbed over two rows of seats to get behind Mike to help with the lift. We never have seen anyone do that! It was amazing. We were able to get Mike safely into his seat in Row 4.

This was a true example of inclusion and what accessible travel is all about. We asked Eric why he went above and beyond the call of duty, he said, “I always ask myself, how would I want to be treated.” Simple, yet profound.

So maybe next time things aren’t quite working out we can ask ourselves “How would I want to be treated?” and help out that employee that is dealing with the crisis or help your fellow humans through whatever situation they might be facing.

Also, don’t forget to check out Handicapthis.com . They have webisodes and other information about their awesome show.