How to do not be scared of flying?

when i was in the 6th grade, my mother wanted to visit relatives in edmonton (alberta, canada). my brother & i had never gotten on, or flown in a plane before. she told us that we were gonna fly there. the first thought that popped in my head was, ‘are we really gonna fly in a plane??? we could die! i don’t wanna die!’ i remember begging my mom if we could take the boat, train or drive there. she said it would take too long & that flying was much faster. i kept trying… after many attempts to try to convince her to change her mind, i finally acquiesced. fast forward one month: we’re boarding the plane & i’m freaking out. i remember seeing this older fat man & thinking that there’s no fucking way this plane could carry him and all these other people. when we got to our seats, i sat down & she buckled me in. i looked around & started to notice other overweight people. i got really, really, really pissed/peeved b/c i knew we were gonna die b/c of them. my face turned red, my body heated up & my stomach felt like it was eating itself (i was probably producing a lot of stomach acid from the stress/anxiety). i didn’t want to trouble my mom so i kept my mouth shut. taking off was the scariest part… i remember closing my eyes & thinking that these fuckers were too heavy & that we were gonna crash into a wall or something & explode into a million pieces & blood would splatter everywhere. i imagined my mother dying & i got really sad, depressed & angry. but then i thought that if she died then i’d die with her and it’d be okay b/c we’d be together in the next life. when we got off the ground & into the sky - i was completely blown away. my focus shifted from ‘we’re gonna die in a plane crash’ to ‘how is this even possible?’ to ‘i wonder if we get parachutes?’ when i was in elementary school my mom couldn’t afford ‘real toys’ so she used to buy me these cheap plastic parachute men. i’d climb the tallest trees & throw them into the air. watching them float down was the coolest thing ever. anyways… i looked around and everyone was acting normal. i started to calm down. when the flight attendant walked by i asked her if we would get parachutes to wear. she looked at me like i was a retard & laughed. she told me no b/c we wouldn’t need them. i’ll spare you the rest of details & tell you that we made it there & back (roundtrip). i’m still alive… responding to your question on my blue iphone 5c. i’ve flown more than 30/40 times in my life. i still get nervous/scared/butterflies but it’s not as bad as before b/c i’ve done it so many times. you know… if you think about it… being scared of flying means you value your life. that’s a good thing. it means you care about yourself & the people you’re connected to. it means you’re not gonna waste this precious life. and i think that’s beautiful… remember this: anytime you’re scared of something, the best thing you can do… is just to do it. don’t think, just fucking do it, a lot. over & over & over. my little sister was scared to give presentations. she would get nervous, shake & rattle her voice. her face would turn red as a stop sign. she told me how she’d rather die than do her senior project b/c she had to give a long presentation. being the awesome brother that i am, i drove down from west hollywood to visit her. i stayed the weekend at moms & forced her to do presentations (all day, all night). she couldn’t even give a presentation to one person (me) let alone a whole room full of people. i fired off random topics & had her make shit up & present that to me (not gonna lie but it was pretty entertaining watching her suffer). after i left on sunday (& over a 200 presentations), she was a pro. she passed her senior project. and now she’s a teacher… repetition will help you conquer (almost) anything. again, if there’s something that scares you then it’s probably the best thing for you b/c the worst thing u could do is go through life fearing everything. be scared of flying but fly anyways… hope that helps ~rob
p.s. the world is beautiful from above the clouds
pps. nothing truly beautiful comes out of living a small life

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