One of the main reasons I hated flying was because of a scary airplane experience. I was already nervous because it was a cheap flight on a smaller plane. As I was settling myself in my seat before takeoff, the captain announced that they expected a lot of fog upon landing, and he wasn’t sure which airport we would end up landing at. We would probably land very late too.
A female passenger stood up, grabbed her bags, and got off the plane. In a nanosecond, I found myself doing the same thing. (No $40 ticket was worth that kind of hassle!) I found out later that the flight was a complete disaster; the plane circled for hours and landed at a different airport than originally planned. I never would have made my business meeting even if I had stayed on that flight! I knew I had made the right decision.
Fast-forward
I was restless at 4:00 a.m. before my 7:00 o’clock flight. During those early morning hours, I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if I were to die on the airplane. What would happen to the kids? Would my wife know what to do? Where to find the life insurance and bank account information?
The fear was so overwhelming that I decided to make an excel file that I named Just in Case. Just in case I didn’t survive the flight… just in case I didn’t make it back home… I felt a little better knowing that my wife would have our important financial information… just in case…