Article by Wendy McCance
I was at a party the other day talking with someone about getting older and the changes that we have noticed. One thing that really struck me was the aversion to adventurous activities. I had always thought it was just me, but as the conversation expanded to include additional people, I began to see a pattern.
When I was young, I loved heights. Anything that would get me in the air was thrilling to me. I was so excited about getting up in the air that I even learned how to fly a small plane in my 20′s.
How, why or when the idea of being up in the air lost its thrill for me I can’t tell you. I never had a bad experience, but all of a sudden, all I could think of was the fall back to earth.
When I was in my 30′s, I went parasailing. After I came down from the sky and was back on the boat, I realized that I spent my entire time worried that the cord would break and pummel me into the lake. It was the first clue that my days of loving heights was changing.
In my early 40′s, I went to the amusement park with my family. We took one of those cars on a rail that are up in the air transporting you across the park. I was petrified. Every little swinging movement made me feel as though the car would snap and we would fall to the ground.
As unwarranted fears of the physical kind began to get the best of me, I noticed that something else had begun to change.
I suddenly had a fearless attitude about going after my dreams. I somehow had lost that voice in side of me that would feed my head with doubt.
Where did this sudden bravery come from? Maybe it was just years of experiencing life. Perhaps I realized that there is nothing scary about taking a chance and putting yourself out there.
I’m sure somewhere there is some sort of study that explains how we view our life as we age. Maybe it explains why I began to stop the perceived endeavours that felt like I was risking my life.
At the same time, we only get one life and it passes in the blink of an eye. Going after your dreams seems like the logical thing to do. Why not live it up? There is nothing to lose and everything to gain off of challenging ourselves to follow our heart.
What do you think about this subject? Have you had a similar experience as you have aged?our heart.
Wendy McCance
To contact Wendy McCance about a writing assignment, interview or speaking engagement, please email her at: [email protected]
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My numerological birth chart shows that I was gifted with an amazing combination of abilities. The carer, the questioner and the asserter were notable for their absence. During my 78 years it has become very obvious that I immediately focused on first becoming a carer, later a questioner and only during the last fifteen years an asserter. I have filled in the three gaps in my birth chart in that order.
Between the ages of three and six I did the most adventurous things any human, let alone a tiny tot should have been permitted to do. Today I would be removed from my mother and placed into some form of “protective” custody. My mother was so inexperienced that she never knew where I was or what I was up to. My adventures included putting pennies onto railway lines to see what the train would do to them, walking along the parapet wall of a railway bridge hundreds of feet above the Manchester Ship canal and a whole catalogue of other hazardous antics that still left me safe.
The adventurer aspect of my birthchart modulated personality returned when I was fourteen when I dumped my religious upbringing (six and fourteen), became a communist (fourteen to twenty four), then a pacifist conscientious objector, then religious again for ten years, then a scientologist and eventually a self determined being. I consider myself far more consciously advanturous now than when I was a child.
Love to all,
John Lester
I think there are plenty of ways to have adventure without undue risk. Jumping out of a perfectly fine airplane with a parachute was once a goal. Now I look at it as a foolish, though if someone else wants to, that’s fine. Just not for me.
I have had plenty of life challenging moments in my life, often because I went there and did that, just for the adventure of it. Now at 52, I find that risking life or injury isn’t necessary to get the adrenalin flowing.
Great post.
Thanks.
I used to love roller coasters, but I don’t anymore - not because I am less adventurous, but because riding roller coasters causes me problems with my back and neck. There are physical realities of getting older that I simply accept. My adventurous nature goes in different directions now. Whereas as a young person I was fearless and “wild”, I have mellowed into someone whose adventures are less taxing to the body. At the same time, even something like seeing wildflowers is exciting to me now, whereas when I was in my twenties I would have been bored with that. I feel more “real” now that I am in my sixties.
Hi Faye, I love that. Saying you’re more “real” really sums it up.
“suddenly had a fearless attitude about going after my dreams.”
Sounds to me like you’ve traded up!
You might be right.
I never believed in risking my health and safety for kicks, but that’s just me.
Thanks for your comment.
This article was cause for reflection. I can’t believe all the high-risk activities I used to do and survived. Some “activities” such as riding out a hurricaine in a 40 foot vessel weren’t done by choice; body-surfing a 20′ ‘Avalanche’ (Oahu/Haleiwa) w/o flippers was. I wouldn’t want to repeat either of those experiences at this age but being in my 20′s and rocking a Type A personality was fun while it lasted.
It’s really amazing how things change.
It’s really amazing how things change.
I have noticed becoming less adventurous and I hate it! Sometimes things just seems like too much trouble-does that mean I’m getting lazy, or just less ambitious? At the same time, I’m much less afraid of saying what I really think, where I used to be afraid I’d offend. Now I guess I don’t care as much about what people think about me. I am who I am! (But I don’t want to lose the adventurous part of me either!)
Sounds familiar.
As we glide from youth to old age, so do our needs from physical to emotional heights. DAD
Wendy, I know what you mean by becoming afraid of heights. I never felt fully comfortable with being high up in the air, but as I have gotten older, I fear more than ever.
As a business owner in various types of businesses over the years, I have become more bold, and will take more calculated chances. I think that this happens with the cumulative knowledge and experience that I have gained, allows me to see the possible outcomes much better than when I was younger. As an online marketer, the biggest problem is that the technology is changing so fast the I have trouble keeping up, so I find my self not taking the actions needed as fast as I should.
Hi Harold, it’s funny that I have never heard anyone talk about this, but it does seem to be a typical reaction as we get older. Thanks so much for your comment.