💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › replies › 433 captured on 2023-03-20 at 20:12:42. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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I've always been scared of taking a plane. Every time I need to do so, I think about it months in advance. As it gets closer to that day, my nights become dreams after dreams of being in the plane and bad things happening. The worst is when I'm in the plane for a red-eye flight and feel on the verge of crashing the whole 12 hours. As soon as there's any movement, my heart rate accelerate. Yet I can see the kids being happy and not caring at all. People watch movies and laugh. But me? I can't allow myself to. Somehow, it's almost like trying to distract me would put me in danger. What's not helping is that my work requires me to travel often. Or at least, it did pre-covid.
One day, one of my colleague and friend told me something that helped me more than I thought. He said: "You're in the plane anyway. You might as well enjoy the ride." No amount of stress would help if something bad were to happen. I don't control that plane at all. I can't pilot. But I do control how I react. That's the one thing I can directly impact.
This year has been a lot like a plane ride. Watching the news was a lot like looking at the plane's speed and altitude screen. It's normal when flying for the altitude to go down at times. For the flight to swing. But we might as well enjoy the ride because either way, that's the only thing we can truly control.
Thank you. This is beautiful.