I keep protecting myself from embarrassment by delaying desire

Dear Delyara, This is one of the harsher truths I know about myself. I often delay not because I don’t care, but because I care too much to bear looking foolish in the wrong place. Wanting something sincerely is exposing. Trying for it before I’m perfectly ready is exposing. So I wait. Prepare. Refine. Call it timing. Fear loves to sound reasonable. That’s what makes it dangerous. By the time I recognize it, another stretch of life has already passed inside the waiting room.