Brutal Life Lessons We Learned From ‘The Flight Attendant’

The Flight Attendant is about a woman who wakes up in bed with a dead man and isn’t sure how it happened. The show is filled with plenty of twists and even laughs, but there are life lessons mixed in, too. If you’ve already finished the first season or okay with spoilers, here are a few reminders from the show:

No matter how close you are to someone, you never really know what others are grappling with.

Megan calls Cassie her best friend – but they were hiding so many things from each other. They had no idea what the other person was struggling through. It was the same with Ani. She admitted to being a liar, to hiding so many personal things from her best friend. Even though these women felt like they had to go through their pain alone, they could have reached out to one another. They would have been there for one another. They weren’t as alone as they felt. They weren’t the only one secretly going through pain.

Tell others how you feel about them before it’s too late. Pushing others away is only hurting you.

When Max ends up in the hospital, Ani is finally able to vocalize the fact that she loves him. Before this point, she kept acting like he was only a friend because she was uncomfortable with her feelings. But you don’t need to wait for a huge, life-altering accident to occur in order to change the way you speak to others. You can work on being more open about your feelings right now. You can remember that vulnerability isn’t a weakness. You can be a strong, independent, badass lawyer and still speak from the heart. You don’t have to pretend you’re emotionless.

Your jealousy is lying to you. The grass isn’t actually greener on the other side.

Megan thought that Cassie lived a perfect, glamorous life. She wanted to be just like her. But it turned out that Cassie was struggling with much more than any of her coworkers realized. Since you don’t know what others are going through in private, it’s easy to assume they have it better. But don’t let your jealousy trick you into believing everyone is happier than you are. The grass might look greener on the other side, but there’s no guarantee it’s true. You’re only seeing what they want you to see.

It’s vitally important to deal with your trauma.

Cassie didn’t want to think about the horrible things that happened to her during her childhood. She lied about watching her father die and then started lying to herself, rewriting her own past in order to make it more palatable. Instead of sitting with her emotions and talking them through with a therapist or trusted friend, she drank to cope. But using drinking as a coping mechanism only made her problems worse. It got her into trouble time and time again. But eventually, she learned from her mistakes. At the end of the season, she started her path toward healing and went to AA – and that first step is a huge step.