I was a physical daredevil as a kid; I knocked out my two front teeth playing Evel Knievel on my bike (they were baby teeth anyway) but somewhere along the line I lost my adventurous spirit and stopped taking risks of any kind.
I’m thinking about investigating a physical art, a discipline, and the idea scares me. Not just because of my age and the growing fear of getting physically hurt that comes with it, but more because this discipline is the kind that it takes years and years of practice at to become even a skilled beginner. Yet, it appeals to me because the very core of it is balance, the harmonizing use of energy to become more aware of yourself and the world around you. So do I take the risk and look potentially like a big fat idiot in front of people with more skill than I? Do I trust the “propoganda†of the dicipline that says that nurturing beginners is one of its core values? Or do I stay in my shell and convince myself without even trying that it’s really not for me.
How to over come this fear of looking foolish I do not know but it is, I think for me, the key to taking more risks.
Go for it. If they’re not as supportive as they claim, you can drop them as jerks, but you will have done your part.
And by the way, you’re not too old for this – but that will only become completely clear to you thirty or forty years down the road, by which time you will be too old, and will look back on the present and know that you could have done it.