Why I refuse to fly.

Let me begin by saying that I love travelling, and recently I've been using travel as a means to discover more about myself and the world around me. Seeing new cultures. Meeting new people. Enjoying new architectures and natural surroundings. It's been an overwhelmingly magical experience. However, there are two very big and major reasons why I have decided to stop flying, at least for quite a while (which sucks because I have family that I love and care about all the way in the States).

So, I have trust issues. And despite the miraculous depths and abilities of the human brain, we are detrimentally flawed and we constantly make mistakes, despite any good intentions. This is one of the many great reasons why I do not enjoy flying, the idea that, despite brilliant minds having invented aviation, it does not always go to plan. Hell, Amelia Earhart was the most amazing female pilot, she had an incredible skill, and years of experience, and yet, despite this, she still died, rather mysteriously, whilst flying. And thus, I repeat, despite humans being brilliant, we are by no means perfect. Therefore, whenever I get into an aeroplane my brain starts to travel at a million miles per hour over these few recurrent thoughts:

"What if there's something wrong with the plane? What if some checks have been missed? What if something goes wrong with both pilots? What if the weather affects the flight? What if the plane gets hit by thunder? (Two of my biggest fears, I hate thunder) What if we hit an air pocket and fall out of the sky? What if we crash land on water and are stuck out at sea for days on end, and are eaten by a shark and whatever else may lurk within the extra 95% of the unexplored oceans?"

Yes! It goes that far!

1. ANXIETY

Now, over the past couple of months, my fight or flight mode has been outrageously on auto-pilot, in other words, my anxiety is in hyper-drive (as you can see from above). The past few times I have flown anywhere recently such as Canada, Spain and Portugal my anxiety overrode my entire being. I'm talking dark thoughts, shakes, jitters, sweats, panic, difficulty breathing and even chest pains. The more I tend to fly the worse the symptoms tend to get. And I came to a, somewhat, realization. I wonder if people's fear of flying is actually instinctive. The fight or flight mode in itself is very much an instinctive and natural happening within the body. I think the issue is the fact that naturally and instinctively we are not meant to be 30,000 ft up in the air. We are not birds. We don't have wings. We can't glide the way sugar gliders do. We can't even jump as high as kangaroos. We are meant to be on the ground. I think that this is the main reason as to why the fear of heights is 1 of the top 10 scientifically proven human fears around the globe (cited from here), because we're just not meant to be up there! I tell everyone this one joke whenever they ask me as to why I'm afraid of flying, I say: "If we take a boat out on the water, and it sinks, I can swim. But if a plane falls out of the sky, I cannot fly."

As you can see from the thoughts that I tend to have (as shown above) when it comes to flying, you can see that a lot of it is an understandable fear to have (or at least I hope you do), there may be one or two that might be a little more extreme, but, I think, still rather plausible. And so, before people say I should see someone about that, I've seen Mel Robbins talk on how to handle fear, and I've seen The talk that Will Smith did concerning his jump out of the helicopter. And before you say to try a sleeping pill or alcohol. Well, the last time I flew, which was to Portugal with my little brother to get our passports updated, I drank beer before the flight. But, I have found, at least with me, that fear has a sobering effect on my body, so that didn't work. And, when it comes to sleeping pills, I don't take medications unless it is necessary or I'm in tremendous amounts of pain. And so, I go on to my next reason.

2. CARBON FOOTPRINT

I don't want to get all environmental on you, but I'm going to. Did you know that one return flight to the USA produces 1.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2)? Did you also know that 1.2 tonnes are also the CO2 budget we should be budgeting ourselves to per year in order to save the planet from Global Warming? Therefore, by taking a trip to the Caribbean, the Americas, or a quick weekend away to France, we immediately threaten the further heating of the planet. Ruining our, and our future children's, futures. Not to mention the added crap we regularly divulge in, like the use of plastics, electricity, taking car trips, and the most threatening daily venture of all (which I can happily rule myself out of) the eating and producing of all animal products. All these activities produce around 10 tonnes of CO2 per year from one average person and if you then times that by 7 billion, that's a lot of freaking carbon. This world is overpopulated and over e-missioned. Therefore, I refuse to continue to exacerbate the issue by taking a plane literally anywhere.

There are plenty of other ways of getting around without the worry of harming our personal health and our planet. The last holiday Georgia and I took, to Brussels, Belgium, we took the Eurostar, it was a lovely, anxiety-free trip. And yes, a train may produce CO2 also but it's a lot less than a plane. Making changes such as this can make a great difference and potentially save us from completely unbalancing the eco-system. Not to mention the fact that being a vegan, and watching the amount of plastic I use, and water I use, and how many car trips I take, I am already doing a huge effort to lower my carbon footprint. By also refusing to eat animal products I already lower my yearly CO2 to around 7,189 kg, which is 7.07 tonnes. I feel like I'm doing really well in my efforts, this right here, is my next step towards fixing mine, and my future families, future. This is what I feel I need to do, in order to cause less damage and do my part to help reverse the already caused damage.

My carbon footprint

So, let me know in the comments below, what steps you're taking to help reverse climate change? Or, what you could do further, to help reverse Global Warming?

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See how much flying is cutting into your CO2 budget: