The words “aviate, navigate, communicate” are drilled into new pilots’ heads as reminders of what to do, and in what order to do it, when the going gets tough.  Pilots hear these words from the outset of their training because many pilots get killed doing what seems natural to them, and as most of us have learned who have made it through the first few decades of life, doing what comes natural can do us in.

In a crisis, for example, it is not natural to relax.   Instead, most humans panic first as their bodies adjust to what initially appears to be an impossible situation with a deadly outcome.

To “aviate” means simply to “fly the airplane.”   Panic distracts us from the task at hand, puts us into an alarm state, and we freeze, forgetting to do the simplest things.  That is why pilots are taught to recite the mantra “aviate” as the first thing to do in a crisis.   Just fly the freaking airplane, or, as it translates to life on the ground, get out of bed, put one foot in front of the other, and stay in control of yourself in the moment.

The next item on the short list is to navigate.  To “navigate” means that one needs to know where one is, and then create a plan on getting to where one wants to go.   Last of all, “communicate”.   Talk to the people who might be able to help you get out of your sticky situation.

These all seem like obvious things to do; it is just that doing them in the wrong order is the thing that can kill you.   For example, when pilots get in trouble the first thing they often want to do is call for help.  In their panic, they try to remember and dial in the right radio frequency to call while in the meantime control of the airplane eludes them.  Or, if they become lost or disoriented, they try to find out where they are by reading a map or sticking their heads into their computers and end up crashing into a mountain.   For earth-bound vehicle drivers, it is like trying to find your wallet or reaching for your cell phone and forgetting to look at the road ahead of you.

Most of us are taught to do things in the opposite order of the aviation dictum.   We are taught first to set goals (navigate), ask questions and learn (communicate), and then to proceed toward our objectives (aviate).   That method works fine in general, but not when faced with a true emergency where your life depends on staying in control.

In a sense, to aviate first means to live in the moment, and not to allow distractions to get the best of us.   That has been difficult for me, because I tend to be so future-oriented that I lose spontaneity and even miss opportunities that are “hidden” right in front of me.   In the last two or three years, trying instead to aviate before navigating has yielded interesting results.  I have allowed myself to get excited about things I otherwise would not have given myself the time to get excited about. I would then let the excitement work its way through me, and see if it would last.  Some things lasted and some things didn’t, and this was the learning experience.  It was this state of “enhanced receptivity” that allowed me to get to know myself a bit better.

It’s a bit like the haiku I remember from the old days: My storehouse having burned down, nothing obscures my view of the bright moon.

For me, the storehouse represents the busyness of life, the cluttering of our perception with goals, mission statements, objectives, thoughts, graphs, material objects.   All of this “navigation” can certainly prevent us from aviating—staying in the moment, “flying the airplane,” and seeing the bright moon above.