Facing fear and losing everything: You’re never gonna keep me down

There are moments that change your life. They are the high peaks of fear and joy that stand out when you look back at the plains and foothills that make up your life.

It could be a death. It could be a birth. Changing jobs. Moving home. Meeting ‘the one’…being dumped by ‘the one.’.

It may be a single instant: Opening that letter.

It may take time: Squaring your shoulders as you walk into that care home yet again.

Whatever it is, you aren’t quite the same person on the other side. Sometimes you’re a better person, sometimes you’re a worse person, oftentimes the experience is so complex that all you can say is that you are a different person.

I’ve had a few of those in my life. The first one was when I was 19. I don’t think that I have ever been more scared in my life.

Live hard, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse

There is an invincibility to youth, particular those years that span our late teens and early twenties. You have some knowledge of yourself and the world, but there’s so much more to discover. The angst and growing pains of the early teenage years have mostly passed and are replaced by an amazing new, adult physical form. Whether we realise it or not, most of us are more beautiful that we’ll ever be again.

At the same time you have more freedom that you’ve ever experienced before. You’re an adult so, technically, no one can tell you where to go and what to do. At the same time you have almost no responsibility. At that age most of us don’t have children, or a mortgage, or even a job that isn’t easily replaceable. And it’s not just you. You have the friends, time and energy you need to enjoy it.

In short life is good.

That was me at 19. I was having a year out before starting university. I had just come to the end of nine months of working full time for the first time. Holding down a job was a real eye-opener it made me feel like a grown-up. I could adult if I had to.

But that bit was over. The Big Adventure was what was next and I knew no fear. I was going to travel. I was going to find myself. I was going to make memories. And if I was going to do all of that then there was only one place to go: India.

Go big or go home

If I was going to be a legend then I was going to do it right. Just me and my rucksack for three months. Bring it on.

Three months? In India? Alone? I can’t imagine it now. Was it naivety then? Is it wisdom now? I don’t know. It’s not even clear to me that I’m wiser now than I was back then.

Anyway, off I went. I’m not going to regale you with it but it was as amazing as you would expect. Beaches and deserts, mountains and cities, extreme poverty and unbelievable wealth. Modernity and antiquity crushed up against each other.

The moment I want to share was around five weeks in. I was visiting a temple in the south of India. As I approached the usual happened, I was surrounded by people offering to be my guide. They would show me the secrets that no one else had seen. They could get me into places that no one else could go into. Good price. After five weeks I was used to it so I just ignored them and started up the steps that were carved into the hillside that led to the temple.

As expected, after I ignored them for a couple of minutes they peeled of and went to harass someone else. All except one. A guy around my own age, maybe a year or two older. He stayed with me and kept talking. Against my will I started to listen.

He was student. Not looking to make money. No. Just want to practise English. Could he do that? Please? No pressure. No sales. Just want to practise English. Please?

I don’t know what I was thinking. I agreed.

You’ve got a friend in me

No, I do know what I was thinking. I was lonely. Despite brief chats with a few travelers I hadn’t had a real conversation for weeks. Previously I’ve touched on my introversion, but I can’t just not talk to anyone.

Actually, he was good company. I’m not sure why he wanted to practise his English as he was pretty fluent. He was cheerful, pointing out interesting things while laughing and chattering. I realise now that he was taking me on a particular route but at the time I thought we were buddies, wandering around chewing the fat.

Hold on. Do you know the pool the goddess bathed in?

I shook my head.

Just around this corner. Come.

We were on the edge of the tourist area, but it was the middle of the day and he was a good guy right? I happily followed.

We turned a corner and in front of us was a large opening into a deserted cave. A pool glinted inside. I would love to say that I was suspicious, that a trickle of fear ran down my spine, but no. Without a thought, I strolled in.

Here you are, he said. It has been very nice to know you. He held out his hand. What is normal now is you give me some tips.

I. Can’t. Breathe.

I turned to leave. A police officer with a long wooden stick stood silhouetted in the mouth of the cave. I hadn’t heard him enter and he just stood looking at me.

I turned back. My new friend stood there with his hand out.

Half hour. Lot of time.

I reached into my pocket gave him 500 rupees. It was all of the money I had on me. Then I walked towards the exit.

The man still blocked my path. I stopped in front of him and turned. My friend leisurely counted the notes I had given him. He looked up and, after a moment that felt like it stretched forever, he jerked his head and the man stepped aside.

My fear deafened me as my heart hammered in my ears.

As I emerged back into the light and heat I walked steadily until I was back in the middle of the tourist throng. It was only then that I felt safe enough to turn around and look back. There was no sign of the two men.

I kept walking and went straight back to my hotel. My mouth was dry and I felt like throwing up. The hotel room had been pre-paid but I packed my rucksack and went to the train station.

I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked back (with apologies to Nietzsche)

It must have been five or six hours later that I found myself sat on the bed in a new hostel in a new town with the door bolted. I don’t have a clear memory of how I got there. It must have been some form of auto-pilot with the help of my Lonely Planet.

I took off my shoes and lay down. The fan slowly spun above me gusting air against my face. I tried to take a deep breath but the tightness in my chest stopped me. I wanted to cry but tears wouldn’t come. The room started to spin so I sat upright. The abrupt movement made me feel sick so I rushed to the bathroom but could only dry retch.

I lay back down.

Three days later I still lay there. Fear paralysed me. I left once to buy bottles of water then came back, bolted the door, and lay back down. It seems inconceivable that I didn’t sleep (I certainly didn’t eat) but all I can remember is lying there watching the fan spin, and spin, and spin.

I replayed that incident in my head. I thought of the things that I could have, should have, said and done. Refusing to give him any money and barreling past the policeman (if it even was a policeman). I replayed all of the warning signs that I ignored. I tortured myself fear of the scenarios that didn’t happen. My body lying face down in the pool. My passport and my traveler’s cheques taken from my hidden money belt. Staying in my hotel to find him looming over me in my bed.

If a person falls in India and no one hears them, do they make a sound?

So what do you do? This was time before everyone had mobile phones and social media. The only contact I had was a call to my parents from an international phone booth once a week. That was it, they had no way of contacting me. No-one knew where I was. I hadn’t got a set itinerary. My only fixed point was my flight back and that was two months away.

If I disappeared no-one would know for days (at best). Even then my parents were thousands of miles away. What could they do?

These were the thoughts that flitted through my mind as I lay there watching the fan. I could lie here forever and, maybe, eventually drift off. Perhaps that would loosen the tightness around my chest. Perhaps.

But then I got up. I don’t know why. But I got up. I went to the bathroom filled a bucket with water and washed myself from top to toe. As my hair dried I shaved and put on some clean clothes. Then I left my room and walked out.

It was another beautiful day and the late afternoon sun warmed me. I found a restaurant and ordered a large vegetarian thali and ate every morsel. After I finished I sat in the shade of a tree on the bench outside the restaurant sipping a clay cup of sweet, hot milky chai. Each sip loosened my chest and washed away the fear. I reached into my bag and pulled out my guidebook.

Where to next?

Dealing with The Fear

I’ve gone back to those days many times in the years and decades since to try to make some kind of sense of it. Fundamentally I had to make decisions. Was I going to give up or was I going to go on?

Giving up felt costless. I could just lie in that room for as long as I liked. I was safe. No one could harm me. Once I was done lying there I could get my things and get to the nearest city and get a flight home. I had enough money to do that. Once I explained no-one would judge me. I had done five weeks by myself in India. That was more than most people would ever experience. It wasn’t failing.

But that’s not what I did. Instead I chose to face down the fear. I shook off my indulgent self-pity and pulled myself together. At that point I couldn’t change whether I had been a victim of crime or not. That had already happened. My choice was about what I was going to do next. Despite all of my instincts to run back to everything that I knew, I chose not to accept being a victim.

I wasn’t going to let what happened to me change my plans. I wasn’t going to give in to fear. I wasn’t going to let him win.

What happens if you lose everything

Saving Ninja’s challenge this month is this:

“You wake up one rainy morning and after checking on your accounts you find out that you’ve been ‘wiped’out’ by a cybercriminal. You’ve lost all of the money and assets that you’ve ever owned and you can’t get them back.

What will you do?”

If that happened to me then I know what I would go through. Guilt. Self-recrimination. Fear. Capitulation. Despair. Hopelessness. Disgust. Embarrassment.

I know that’s what I would feel because that’s what I felt all those years ago in India.

But I also know that if that happens then I have all the resources I need to pick myself up. I’ve been there when my worst fears have come to pass. I know I can brush myself off and keep going.

Having done it once, and with the imperative of having people that depended on me I don’t think that I would even allow myself the indulgence of wallowing for very long. I would just have to get on with it. The blame game can wait.

I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down

So having lost everything, on day one I would reach out to friends or family to make sure that we had somewhere to spend that first night. I wouldn’t want to impose on them for too long but we would need a month (or more specifically until payday). On day one I would also go to my bank to make sure that my overdraft and credit cards were still in place so I would have working capital. Together that should mean that we could survive that first month with the kids being able to go to school and us going to work.

Once the first paycheck came in things would be easier. There would be money for a deposit on a flat, so we could move out. Within a couple more months I would hope that any credit card or overdraft debt would be paid back along with rent to the friends we were staying with.

From there it would be a case of rebuilding. Saving a deposit for a smaller home, restarting my pension, saving an emergency fund. I would expect that I would do more cost cutting and searching for promotions than I do now. Thinking about it we would probably also look to move to a cheaper area – although we probably wouldn’t want to disrupt the kids’ schooling.

Despite all of that I think that within six months we would be back to some kind of normality.

This’ll get me up on the dance floor every time.

Three intangible things

As I write this it strikes me is how much of my wealth is intangible.

Firstly the network of friends and family was something that I didn’t have in India. This is undeniably part of the privilege that underlies my life. I can think of five families that would unquestioningly take us in for as long as we needed.  Giving it a bit more thought, I can also think of a number of others that would happily take us in for at least a few weeks. Wow. That level of privilege makes me very conscious that many people don’t have the networks they need to support them through life.

Secondly, I have the benefit of not having any debt. It’s not an accident that I’m in this position, it’s something I have consciously worked to secure. That means even if I am standing there with zero in assets I am already well ahead of many people in this country and around the world. Related to that is the pre-approved credit (in the form of my overdraft and credit cards) that I currently don’t use.  It would mean that even from the beginning I would have cash

The third thing is that my biggest revenue generating asset is me. My earning power is based on education, qualifications and experience. Those can’t be taken away for me. Even if everything physical is taken I have the ability to earn money, good money, quickly.

I am also aware of the unimportance of those intangible things. If we lost everything we owned then our family would still have each other. It wouldn’t be easy, but those first few bleak weeks would be made easier by having my wife and children around me. Without wanting to get mawkish, they are my real wealth. Losing them is my real fear.

Coda

Saving Ninja’s rule for his thought experiments is to write this as a stream of consciousness so that’s what I’ve done. But, reading it over there’s one thing I want to add.

I love India.

It is an amazing country and I have been back since – including taking my children out there. When I was out there all those years ago I was shown immense kindness by complete strangers who wanted nothing in return. I remember one time when I fell ill on a crowded train when the entire carriage worked together to look after me. That resonates with me as I once found myself on a train in Surrey where someone started to have a fit and, except for three of us, the rest of the carriage ignored him and carried on reading their papers.

What happened to me could have happened anywhere around the world, including in the developed west. There are criminals and scam artists ready to prey on fear and the unwary wherever you are.

This is not a morality tale of about the dangers of India and Indians. It is a story about my own fear and failings and how, with a large amount of unearned luck, I pulled through.

Further reading

As always there are a number of us doing this Thought Experiment.  As they go up I’ll add links below.

If you’re interested in my previous thought experiments you can find my thoughts on regrets here, and my thoughts on dying here.

Saving Ninja

QuietlySaving

in-deed-a-bly

Marc @ FinanceYourFire

Merely curious

FIRE v London

Gentleman’s Family Finances

Young FI Guy

What Life Could Be

Thoughts?

Have you ever had to face fear? How did it affect you?

Are there times when you have hit rock bottom? What did you do to pull out?