Rocking life day by day

“Your consistency says a lot about your commitment.” Rasheed Ogunlaru, British business coach

While a new look or partner can get many a celebrity attention, the women who are really rocking the world are all about consistency. Look at Tammie Jo Shults. When the Southwest Airlines jet she was piloting went bad in multiple ways Tuesday, this steely mid-lifer did what she has always done. Fly.

Skills honed as one of the U.S. Navy’s first female fighter pilots shone even brighter in the cockpit of a commercial airliner. All but one passenger and crew survived an emergency landing.

Shults’ heroism is obvious. Scores of people are alive to tell about it. But, she is far from the first woman to make the world better by day-to-day diligence. Two other women in the news this week are worth a similar look even though their roles may be less dramatic.

One of them is former First Lady Barbara Bush, who died Tuesday at age 92. Whatever your politics, it’s hard not to admire a woman who could inspire her young fiance to name three bomber planes after her (the Barbara, Barbara II and Barbara III) and stay married to that same man through more than seven decades, six children and many years in Washington, D.C. Throw in a few things like aging gracefully, displaying an unflappable charm and championing universal literacy and it seems we have another keeper in the Consistency Hall of Fame.

Or, what about the UK’s Queen Elizabeth? Also in her 90s, the queen was in the news this week for mourning the loss of the last corgi descendant of a dog given to her by her parents 14 canine generations ago. Like Bush, she so inspired the dashing young Greek who would later become her husband, Prince Philip, that he rowed madly out into the middle of a lake just to see her teenage self off. Ruling a kingdom with grace and dignity (in spite of the occasional family meltdown), making the same hair-do work over a lifetime, and having the confidence to choose a pack of dogs as her only posse — the queen is definitely a keeper.

I hope to be like these ladies. A consistency shero. Although I will likely never execute an emergency jet landing, rule a nation or sleep in the White House,  I hope to make a bit of a difference day by day by day, doing what only God can help me to do. Fly.