I miss wanting things without immediately negotiating myself out of them

Dear Delyara, I used to move toward things more cleanly. Now every want enters a whole committee meeting in my head. Cost. Timing. Family. Energy. Age. Risk. Probability. What if it fails. What if it works and changes everything. What if I don’t have the stamina for the version of me that wanting this would require. What if I’ve already missed the stage of life in which this kind of ambition looks natural instead of slightly embarrassing. That is not all wisdom. Some of it is fear dressed in mature language. Some of it is disappointment calcified into personality. Some of it is what happens when a life becomes so built around maintenance that desire begins to feel selfish unless it arrives with a business case attached. I don’t think my ambition is gone. I think it has become frightened of its own visibility.