The event held in New York was enjoyed by n’shei Chabad throughout the country. Finally, after being inspired and gathering tools for inspiring others, the group of women from Detroit packed their luggage and headed for the airport.
It was a cold winter in the 1960s and weather forecasted a snowstorm brewing. When they arrived at the airport ready to check in, they were disappointed to see that their flight had been cancelled. They felt stuck and were unsure if they should book a new flight or if they should go back to Crown Heights. After debating with each other, they decided to consult with the Lubavitcher Rebbe and called his office. His secretary answered, “What’s going on?”
They said, “We’re stuck in the airport. Can you ask the Rebbe his advice on what we should do?”
The secretary put the phone down and went to the Rebbe’s office. He came back and reported, “The Rebbe doesn’t understand what you mean by stuck.”
So the woman explained, “Well, we were supposed to be flying to Detroit, but now we’re stuck in the airport. Now we’re just stuck.”
Again, the secretary went to the Rebbe and again came back with the same answer. “The Rebbe doesn’t understand what you mean by stuck.”
So she explains, “Is it the English word – ‘stuck’? We’re stuck. Like, we’re here and we’re supposed to be there. We don’t know what to do and where to go.”
After approaching the Rebbe again, he returned to the phone with the Rebbe’s reply, “The Rebbe understands what stuck means. He understands English. What the Rebbe is asking – why do you think you’re stuck? Stuck means that you know where you’re supposed to be and you’re not there. Since you’re not there, you feel like the block is stopping you from where you’re supposed to be. How do you know where you’re supposed to be at this given moment? Maybe you’re not stuck. Maybe you’re supposed to be here right now.”
They heard the message and they immediately acted on it. They walked through the airports, gave out candles and started inspiring the people who were waiting around in the airport. They did this until the next flight took off.
Although this story sounds simple, to me it was very profound. One of the great frustrations in life is that we feel stuck. Do you ever get into a conversation with somebody and think, “Oh no! Here we go… This is going to go on forever…”? Did you ever go the wrong way and now you’re going to keep on driving to find the exit on the way home? Did you ever take the wrong train? Did you ever get involved in something that was wasting your time? Did you ever feel that you don’t know which way is up or if your career is going in the right direction or wrong direction? Did you ever feel stuck?
The feeling of being stuck, whether it is traffic, an unexpected delay or in any area in life, starts to grate at us. The reason it grates at us is because all of us deep down think, “We know where we’re going and we know the path to get there.” We think we know that we have to be at a certain place at a certain time or point in our lives. We have a sense of what the destination looks like and we also have a sense of the timeline. When reality doesn’t align to our needs, we feel outmatched. We feel stuck.
What if that wasn’t the case? What if we really don’t know where we are going? Of course we should have goals and aspirations and visualize the end goal, what if there are steps and aspirations and destinations that we never even dreamed of? How many of us lived our dreams and are in places that we never could have dreamed of twenty years ago?
Maybe the opportunities that we are looking for are in the moments that we are most stuck. Maybe the conversations that we are trying to get out of are the ones we need to be diving into. Maybe the times in our lives that we are stuck at jobs is because we haven’t deepened our understanding or our skills in something.
This is how it gets all messed up. The minute we feel like we are stuck, we just can’t wait to get out. We are not there, but we are also not here, so we’re nowhere.
Maybe we can live our lives aspiring, but whenever we feel stuck and whenever we are stuck, we can realize that this is exactly where we are supposed to be. Maybe we can replace the feeling of, “Oh my, I wish I was somewhere else,” with the feeling of, “If I’m stuck here, I will really make this the best that it can be.” Maybe there is something better that I can gain and grow and give because being stuck and not being stuck is just perspective.
When you are waiting on a long line, you feel stuck. The person standing next to you is the officer, so he doesn’t feel stuck because that is his job. Maybe being stuck is just a perspective. Maybe alongside our aspirations, we can remember that if we get stuck at some point, there may be another avenue or opportunity that we needed and we can find it now.
And if we end there, we meet the person that we never thought we were possible because a person is never really stuck.
Story From StoriesToInspire.org