You can tell more about people when they are having problems than when things are going well. Everyone can be fairly pleasant and friendly when things are fine, but matters get dicey when life isn’t going so smoothly. Take this evening, for example. I am sitting on the floor of the Philadelphia International Airport, watching a real-life drama filled with people who have had their Friday evenings go bad.

You see, the weather had turned very lousy because of severe rain showers, and flights were backed up at very gate. I had caught some good luck, however, in that I was able to find the last available seat on my return flight to Kansas City. My original flight was to depart at 9:30 p.m., and my fortunate break enabled me to catch an outgoing 5:30 p.m. flight. It now was 7 p.m., though, and my 5:30 p.m. flight was not even on the ground. Practicing the maxim, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” I thought that this evening would offer a good chance to write a column on “grace” that I had been meaning to write.

For some travelers, the self-anointed ones who are very important, the solution to this inconvenience is to complain loudly to everyone within earshot. For such grand people, their inconveniences naturally take on great implications.

In this regard, I remember hearing a supposedly true story that happened at the old Denver Stapleton Airport. On a bad-weather evening that mirrored the present one in Philadelphia, a well-dressed man shoved his way to the front of a rebooking line and demanded that he be placed on the very best seat in the next outgoing plane to Chicago. When the airline attendant did not respond quickly enough, he slammed his fist down on the counter and shouted to her, “Do you know who I am!” The attendant grabbed the microphone to the PA system and announced to all, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a serious problem here. We have a gentleman who does not know who he is!”

The people in line burst into laughter, and then applauded. Our “first-class” man became even more outraged and shouted to the female booking agent, “Screw you!” Unfazed, her reply was, “I’m afraid that you will have to go to the end of the line for that sir.”

I always have thought that story must be true because it is so funny. And, the attendant certainly seemed to have what I would call “grace under pressure.” Unfortunately, however, I had seen one man this very evening behave in a similar manner to this “big shot” as he dealt with the booking agent. This man totally lacked grace.

But, my present tale gets better, because there also were wonderful people at the Philadelphia airport, people who were trying to make the best of difficult situations. For example, when a young Army soldier just back from Iraq noticed that he had lost his girlfriend’s ring, the people working at the airport and all of us in the waiting area immediately began to search for it. In a short period of time, the ring was located, and a cheer went out in the crowd. The soldier beamed and the cold, dreary evening got a little warmer as the crowd showed grace.

Around 7:40 p.m., the announcer told us that there would be yet longer delays on several of the flights. As she reeled off a series of flights that were either delayed or canceled, a collective groan arose from the crowd. This was the turning point. I sat down and leaned against a wall and awaited the next developments.

To my amazement and delight, I found that my fellow travelers (and I) just coped. Some broke out supplies of food that they had stashed away in bags, and they offered their treasures to others. (I scored a homemade caramel-coated popcorn ball.) Decks of playing cards came out, and various games were started. Family members talked excitedly about what they were going to do the next day (a Saturday, which was getting closer by the minute). The airlines people handed out snacks. There were scattered outbreaks of laughter.

As if we were soldiers waiting in the trenches during a lull between battles, someone in the distance began to play a harmonica. Small boys made a baseball diamond, and as their game progressed, no one seemed to mind when one of their home runs would sail by.

Although there weren’t enough seats for everyone, people creatively made chairs and couches out of their luggage. The people who had computers took them out and played video games with each other. One guy even turned his computer screen into a drive-in movie-like setup on which several people watched “The Matrix.” I used my computer to write this column.

I once heard it said that grace is doing the average thing when everyone should be going crazy. When hollering and screaming, becoming angry and upset, and generally “losing it” seem to loom just over the horizon, it is wonderful instead to see the warming grace of people-similar to the rays of the sun on a cold day. This is what happened on this recent Friday evening at the Philadelphia airport.

Rick Snyder is the Wright Distinguished Professor of Clinical Psychology, at Kansas University.