I think I am more afraid of trying than of staying stuck

Dear Delyara, That sentence embarrassed me when I first admitted it to myself. I complain about my job. I dream about changing direction. I save links, write notes, ask questions, imagine another kind of life. And yet when the moment comes to actually apply, enrol, begin, risk, I freeze. Not because I am lazy. Because failure feels too public and too personal now. When you’re younger, failing is easier to absorb because there is so much time left to rearrange the story. At this age, failure feels like evidence. It feels like confirmation that the life you didn’t build may have been the life you were never going to be capable of building. So I stay where I am and call it practicality. A lot of the time it is fear. And the humiliating part is that the fear now hurts almost as much as the stagnation.