Gathering the orders for a takeaway Wagamama I remember my daughter’s cautionary warning about the “Hot Chicken Katsu Curry”, so I’m surprised when she, like me, chooses it.
“This is as much adrenaline as I want,” she says and we laugh our way through what is, even for someone who enjoys heat, a decidedly spicy dish.
“I agree. I don’t want to go too fast, or too high. Nothing too edgy.”
It’s always been easy for me to think of myself as cautious and unadventurous, and maybe I am, but it’s the pejorative sense of self-criticism that’s really been destructive.
As a child, I was perpetually anxious, which played out in a whole range of dispiriting memories that seem funny viewed through the prism of several decades but served only to make me more self-dismissive at the time.
Why I agreed to join the Scouts would be a bewildering puzzle if it weren’t for my mother telling me she thought it would “be good for you,” an assertion wildly inaccurate but uttered by the one person I felt wholly unable to disappoint.
I couldn’t swim so canoeing was out. I have never liked heights, so mountaineering was off-limits, and I don’t know whether or not I would have liked tight spaces but I suspected not and so I politely refused potholing too.
I did once make a reasonable fruit cake in a tin over a campfire though, an achievement that probably resulted in my being bullied although I don’t really remember.
I wasn’t any braver away from Scouting.
I once reached the top of a Helter Skelter with my father only to get cold feet and make my way back down all of the stairs we’d just climbed pushing apologetically past irritated revellers.
My dad came down alone.
We have a photo of him just appearing at the bottom that doesn’t capture his face which I remember to be full of excitement, possibly at having the chance to ride freely without his embarrassing son in tow.
He obviously didn’t give up though because some years later he convinced me to ride “The Waltzer” at the local fair, an experience that terrified me to such an extent that I stuffed my candyfloss into his trousers making it look as if was sporting some elaborately dyed pubic hair.
As I got older I avoided opportunities that would have required me to spend extended periods away from home, and I can’t ever remember asking a girl out unless the signals were so apparent they may as well have been shining in neon outside my bedroom window.
No risk, no reward, and no rejection always seemed like a pretty good deal.
Then, as if fate had decided to put me straight, I heard an episode of “Why Do We Do That?” on the radio about why we do things that are bad for us and, more specifically, why we take risks.
It turns out that essentially we take risks to ensure the survival of the species but that “risk” is a broad church.
Earlier that same day I had been answering a question from a client who was asking how she could overcome her crippling self-doubt.
“You have to take a risk in order to prove to yourself you’re worth more than you’d feared,” I reply, although with somewhat more detail.
So maybe I too took risks. Is it even possible to avoid doing so?
Getting married carries risk, as does raising children.
Starting a business, or pushing for promotion is risky too.
I used to make up songs about my life and sing them out loud to groups of the largely disinterested. That often felt full of jeopardy
Then, when I felt too old for that I started writing about myself here and emailing it out to people many of whom were and still are complete strangers.
When we worry that we’re not quite what we’d hoped we might be it’s worth reflecting on how easy it is to prove the beliefs we already hold and how a reasonably hot curry can teach you more than you’d imagine.
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