People seem to think that if you haven’t done something from the time you were little that you won’t be able to do it. It’s a bit like the reverse of those signs next to the rides at amusement parks. “If you’re this tall then you’re too old to ride this ride. Move along to something more age appropriate.” For some reason, even though we are intrigued by something, have wanted to try it forever, are receiving noodges from all around us over and over again, sometimes for years, we get stuck in this “It’s too late” mindset which prevents us from even trying.
What’s funny is that while this seems very logical and practical, saving many a person from a midlife disaster and the life long embarrassment of looking like a fool and being a failure, a great many times it’s our problem solving side sacrificing opportunity for safety. Better the life you know rather than the one you don’t. Here’s the thing. Back in the day when trying something new was expected, we didn’t care if we failed, we didn’t care what we looked like doing it, and we didn’t care if it didn’t work out. We loved to try, to see, to experience, and then try something else, try more, harder, better. We loved the doing and being of things. And there’s nothing that says we can’t do that again.
For a lot of us, the longer it goes, the more we become not only habituated to the dream never becoming anything other than a dream, but we start to cherish it in its amorphos state. We start to be resistant to letting it become reality. We start to be protective of it’s never having come true or been anything way of being. Our identity forms around it like a coral reef growing around and over rocks. Who we are has merged with it. The fear of the unknown, of what it would become or cease to be, of how we would change frightens us enough that we build walls of excuses, rationalizations, and practical reasons why we can’t even begin. All of which is nonsense. We may think our lives as they are now are carved in stone, however, in reality we are geodes waiting to be cracked open. What marvels are you hiding inside?
