It happened one day at Chicago’s Airport.

A young lady was waiting in the departure lounge for the boarding announcement of her delayed flight. It was a Friday evening, and she was looking forward to getting home, and to the dinner date with her boyfriend. Just a wee bit impatient with the delay, she walked across to a kiosk and bought herself a pack of her favorite cookies—almond and raisin specials!

Spotting a seat adjacent to a convenient table-like space, she quickly settled in and pulled out her laptop, hoping to finish the presentation she had been working on. She took one bite of the cookie, then another … the cookie was quickly gone! As she reached out for a second cookie, she was taken aback to find that the man on the next seat was helping himself to one too, without even the courtesy of ‘May I please …’!
What a weird man, she thought to herself, biting into another cookie. She tried to focus on her work but was quickly distracted by the sight of that shirt sleeve reaching out yet again and grabbing another cookie!

Was he being friendly? Was he being a bully? Was he a thief? A million angry thoughts crossed her mind, and she was tempted to pull the pack of cookies away and give a piece of her mind to the man. She held herself back but only just. She threw him one of those glazed looks that seemed to combine scorn, anger and disgust. The man only smiled.

And this went on. She’d take a cookie, and so would he. Until it was down to the last cookie. As she eyed it, the man quickly grabbed it, split it into two and gave her a half. She took the cookie and was about to stand up, yell and create a scene when she heard the announcement of her flight being ready for departure. She got up, grabbed her bags and headed off towards the boarding gate, still angry, very angry with the man who stole her cookies.

She got into the aircraft, found her way to her window seat and to get her mind off the wretched guy, she decided to immerse herself in a book. ‘Better to lose myself in a world of make-believe rather than think of real-world demons!’ And she reached into her handbag to pull out her reading glasses …

Guess what she found in her handbag? Her pack of cookies. The almond-and-raisin specials! ‘Oh no!’ she sighed.

Those two words escaped her lips as she sank into her seat. And as she realized what had really transpired, she felt terrible. She had been eating the other guy’s cookies! And she’d been so rude to him. And she’d thought he was such a terrible guy. And the man—no, that gentleman, she corrected herself—had smiled through it all, even as a stranger ate his cookies.

She got up instinctively to see if the man was on the same flight, so she could at least apologies for her behavior and thank him for the cookies. But he was nowhere in sight.

You may think this is a nice little story about a remarkable coincidence involving other people in a faraway land. No! What happened that evening in Chicago between a man, a woman and a pack of cookies happens to you and me, to all of us, all the time. With cookies, or without.

We go through our lives feeling that other people are taking advantage of us, of our talents, stealing our cookies. We seldom pause to think about how we depend on others, on their support, their cookies.

Not just that. Often, the cookies we think of as our own actually belong to others. We worry, we fume when we see someone else get credit for what we think of as ‘our achievements’. And yet we happily bask in the glory of recognition for achievements that were clearly the result of other people’s support. No problems with that!

Joint ventures and business partnerships are witnesses to several such moments of stolen cookies. Each side feels the other side is stealing its cookies. Success, however, lies in thinking like that man at Airport. Share those cookies, and keep smiling.


The world is full of cows and dogs. More dogs, fewer cows. Cows are the givers. They give their milk, not only to their own calves but also to strangers, to humans. They share happily with everyone, not just their own. Dogs are the takers. Wherever they are, they claim territorial rights. Go near them and they growl, they threaten, they fight for the bone, they fight to claim space that doesn’t belong to them. They want those cookies, others’ cookies.

The next time you feel someone else is eating your cookies, just smile.

There will be times when you are like that man, and you’ll find someone else eating your cookies.
Never mind. Be a cow. Give. Smile.

There will also be times when you’ll be like that young lady, eating someone else's cookies, mistaking them for your own. Don’t growl. Don’t be rude. Just smile.
Clearly, it’s a good idea to go through life with a smile.

Remember, there will always be another pack of cookies waiting for you somewhere.

We all go through our lives feeling that other people are taking advantage of us, of our talents, stealing our cookies. We seldom pause to think about how we depend on others, their support, their cookies. Often, the cookies we think of as our own actually belong to someone else.