Year 10, day 1 without hurting people and funding lobbyists by flying
On March 23, 2016 my flight arrived in JFK from Paris. Since then, I challenged myself to go a year without flying.
I expected it to become the worst year of my life, or at least miserable:
- Like many of you readers, many family members and people I love and care about live flying distance away.
- I relied on flying for my income so worried I might go broke.
- I wasn’t practicing sustainability or sustainability leadership that much by then, but loved nature and considered flying a way to visit places to experience nature.
- I considered learning about other cultures and cuisines good for everyone.
I could list more fears, but I can summarize that I considered flying an unalloyed good. If you feel you can’t live without flying, that your family will disown you, etc, believe it or not, I felt more fear, I believed it would be more impossible for me, I felt it would be easier for you or anyone else than for me.
No one who hasn’t also stopped flying believes me, but within a few months, I found my life improved. It not only improved, it improved in exactly the areas I feared it would suffer. I discovered I had kicked an addiction.
Like all addictions, it began feeling good, then felt essential for life, then I needed it just to feel normal, as if going without was bad.
As with all addictions: You tell me what you fear losing in overcoming it and I’ll tell you exactly what you’ll gain more of.
March 24, 2016 began my first year without flying. If I’ve done my math right, March 24, 2025 begins my tenth year without flying.
I wish I’d known the results so I could have started earlier.
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