At 3 am, airports exist in a strange in-between world. They are neither fully asleep nor fully awake. It was in this quiet hour at Trivandrum airport that I experienced a moment that continues to shape how I think about travel, work and gratitude.

I was half-asleep waiting for my boarding call. Then the man sitting next to me spoke. He shared that he was traveling to Dubai to visit his son. It was his first flight in 25 years. As we spoke, he kept glancing at his boarding pass, double-checking his gate number and clutching his passport with both hands as if it was something precious. Every movement near the gate caught his attention.

When the boarding announcement finally came, he turned to me with a smile and said, “You travel so often, it must feel normal. For me, this feels like a dream I saved up for.” That sentence stayed with me long after the flight took off.

When Extraordinary Becomes Ordinary

For many of us, airports are no longer destinations. They have become routine, just another leg between meetings, conferences and deadlines. But for someone else, it is the moment they have been waiting for their whole life.As life expands through work, opportunity and responsibility experiences that once felt extraordinary become ordinary. When these experiences become routine, gratitude often fades into the background. 

The man’s words became a reminder for me that routine is not universal. What feels normal to one person may have decades of effort, patience and sacrifice to another. For many people, it is a long-held dream finally made possible. That morning at the airport did not change my schedule but it changed how I viewed certain things. It reminded me to stay grateful:

• For the work that allows movement
• For the travel that once felt out of reach
• For the life that slowly, quietly expanded beyond earlier expectations

For him, the airport represented:

• A long-awaited reunion
• A milestone which was postponed for years
• A personal victory he quietly earned

For me, it was another checkpoint in a busy schedule and neither experience was wrong.

Gratitude as a Professional Discipline

In leadership discussions and corporate areas, gratitude is considered to be a soft skill which is often discussed and associated with workplace culture or personal well-being. Beyond being an emotional response, gratitude can function as a discipline and reintroducing gratitude into professional life does not require any dramatic transformation. It begins with conscious awareness within us through a deliberate effort to pause and recognize the value within the experiences that are often taken for granted. Gratitude encourages professionals to acknowledge not just outcomes but also the process and efforts that accompany one’s career growth.

For individuals whose careers involve regular travel, this discipline becomes so relevant. Airports, flights and international movement starts to shift from being symbols of opportunity to symbols of efficiency and pressure. These frequent travellers mainly focus on managing delays, attending back-to-back meetings and maintaining all the important schedules.

More than these, gratitude strengthens leadership effectiveness. Leaders who consciously practice gratitude are said to show higher emotional intelligence, stronger empathy and deeper team connection. Recognizing one’s own journey truly encourages leaders to appreciate the journeys of others, creating workplace environments that balance performance with humanity.

Carrying the Lesson Forward

We rarely pause to consider the stories unfolding around us in these shared environments. We confine ourselves into personal bubbles of music and screens, insulating ourselves from the collective humanity that surrounds us. While privacy and rest are understandable needs during travel, occasionally opening up for connection can bring you moments of unexpected insight. Reintroducing gratitude into the travel experience does not require grand gestures. It can begin with a simple pause like a moment to acknowledge the privilege of movement and the personal journey that brought us to this point.

The next time you board a flight, consider pausing to reflect on your own journey and the distance you have travelled, both literally and metaphorically.

That conversation at 3 am in Trivandrum airport taught me that gratitude often arrives unannounced, carried in the words of a stranger. It reminded me that what feels routine to one person may represent a lifelong dream to another. I may never see him again, yet his words continue to travel with me.

What is one airport memory that has stayed with you? It might be a reunion, a farewell or a conversation that shifted your perspective.