Overcoming Fear

An expired passport likely saved the lives of two of our close friends. It was 2004, and they were planning to go to Thailand for Christmas week. The night before they were scheduled to fly out, they realized that one of their passports had expired. The process of replacing the passport altered their itinerary a bit and, although they made it to Thailand, they did not get to Ko Phi Phi, an island off the southwest coast of the mainland.

At 8 am on December 26th an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia measuring 9.3 on the Richter scale unleashed a powerful tsunami which rippled out toward Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Maldives, Africa and beyond. Two and a half hours later, the Thai islands of Phuket, Khao Lake and Phi Phi were hit with massive waves, and more than 5000 people were killed, 2000 of them foreign tourists. Fortunately our friends were a safe distance away from the hardest hit areas, due to their altered itinerary. The Indian Ocean Tsunami (or Boxing Day Tsunami) was one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history, and killed more than 225,000 people.

Of course, their story was in the back of my mind as I planned the Thailand portion of our journey. I decided that we would not travel to Ko Phi Phi which required an hour long boat ride to reach, citing my tendency toward seasickness. I opted for Phuket, which is a much larger island and has an international airport. I was thrilled to book a two-bedroom apartment about 50 feet from the beach.

But shortly after booking, the fear emerged. I woke up in the middle of the night worrying... what if a tsunami happened while we were there? The apartment is on the ground floor! We wouldn't be able to escape to a higher level. What if a tsunami happened at night and we were asleep? We wouldn't even see it coming! fear Fear FEAR. After several restless nights I decided to book an alternate accommodation, up the hill and far away from the shore. It was nice but I was disappointed that we'd be giving up a very convenient, beautiful and affordable beachfront stay.

I started to do the math. (Math always helps with middle-of-the-night worries, I've found. Factual evidence to tame the wild worry and irrational imagination.) How many deadly tsunamis have there been in Thailand in the last 100 years? 1. How many days will we be in Thailand near the shore? 4. What is the chance that a tsunami will occur during one of these 4 days that we are there? Extremely small. Logically, I have nothing to fear. But emotionally, my amygdala still is in hyper-mode. I held the reservations for both hotels. I desperately wanted to keep the beach apartment but couldn't quite commit.

A few weeks before we left New Jersey to begin our trip, we went to visit our fortunate friends. I asked them what they thought we should do. Stay near the beach? or farther from the action at a higher elevation? Without hesitation they recommended staying by the beach, explaining that Thailand has created a tsunami warning system with alarm sirens, text message warnings and signs marking evacuation routes. This was the reassurance I needed to make the rational decision to follow through with my original plan of staying close to the beach. I canceled our higher elevation hotel room.

Unfortunately I did not realize at the time that Z had overheard my concerns about tsunamis (but not the explanation of why we needn't fear a repeat disaster). The first night of our stay in the beachfront accommodation he couldn't sleep. Turns out my sleepless worrying was contagious. Just like my friends had reassured me, I reassured him that we were completely safe and there was nothing to fear. However I have to admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when our taxi drove up the hill away from the beach, headed to the airport and away from the shore. I guess it's true that overcoming fear is less about eliminating it completely and more about assessing the risks and rewards and acting rationally, while still pursuing the dream. Just without the sleepless nights.