Why don't I DO stuff?

[cjsmith]

I just re-read two journal entries, one containing several unusual things I've done and another listing things I haven't done but coulda or woulda liked to. I'm struck by the fact that most of the interesting things I've done were done more than a decade ago, and the things I'd like to do have sat on my "maybe someday" mental list for years.

Was I really so much more interesting ten or twenty years ago? Does this have something to do with being a grownup with a mortgage? Why haven't I done more of the things I'd like to try? What am I so afraid of?

Comments

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Didn't you just, like, go square dancing in Iceland or something? That seems kind of interesting to the untrained eye...

I know what you mean, though. It's easy to get trapped in that "birth school work death" rut.

Is there something you're afraid of, though? I mean, I know after my adventures that Don't Work Out I minimize my risks & my striking out for quite a while.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I think what I'm most afraid of is Screwing Up. Doing something without thinking it through, and thus closing off a future possibility I later find I want; doing something suboptimally and feeling dumb; that sort of thing. I haven't used LJ's photo hosting feature for paid users yet because I might not do it flawlessly the first time.

I think I wasn't so strongly like this ten or twenty years ago. Maybe I can manage to be not so strongly like this ten or twenty years from now!