smth interesting my colleague sent !

Who packs your Parachute?


Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. He ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"

"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.


"I packed your parachute," the man replied.

Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man shook his hand and said, "I guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

Plumb couldn't sleep that night for thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering about the many hours the sailor spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what he or she needs to make it through the day. Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We need to take the time to recognize the people packing our parachutes.

Extracted from: http://www.lubbockfunclub.com/LifeLesson.htm