If you’d love to quit smoking, but fear you can’t…you’re not alone.

Fear is one of the two dominant energies in life; love is the other.  They don’t occupy the same space very well…in fact, they oppose one another.  Fear methodically paralyzes until it completely keeps us from experiencing the very thing which would make us happy…love.

If we fear failure…we won’t try.  If we fear death…we won’t live.  If we fear fear…we won’t love.  But, if we confront what we fear, we begin to dissipate its energy.

Fear of the unknown is no question the most terrifying fear of them all.  Although with a little information, it can dissipate much faster than you think.

For years, I had a terrible fear of flying.  I just couldn’t understand how the weight of a jumbo jet, full of passengers and luggage, could ever get off the ground, much less fly safely.

On those rare occasions when I had to fly, I would find myself foolishly replaying in my mind, over and over again…you guessed it… the worst case scenario which would always end in a fiery crash.

The fear of the unknown is so powerful it can supersede rational thought.  You see, I knew for a fact thousands of flights successfully departed and landed day in and day out….but somehow my fear would dwell on the crash that made headlines 10 years ago.

Knowledge is Power!

I finally decided to break free of my fear by flooding myself with as much information as I could soak up on the safety aspect of flying. I read countless testimonies from career pilots with 30 and 40 years’ experience elaborating on the safety and their love of flying.

I learned of the many safety aspects which make flying the safest mode of travel there is today:

•    A two engine plane could fly and land just fine even if one failed.

•    In the extremely rare event all engines were to stop at cruising height (35,000 feet), the aircraft would glide 30 minutes covering 120 miles before landing on the ground, because all the controls would work as if the engines were still going.

•    Every commercial airplane system is built with a primary, auxiliary, back-up, and emergency system to ensure the safety of passengers.

Honestly with all of this information, I was able to tame my fear and fly much more comfortably.  With enough credible information, one can turn any “fear of the unknown” into a paper tiger.

I’ll connect the dots from fear to smoking in my next blog article.

Bill Peak

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