The Fear and Fun of Learning Something New

Have you ever noticed that as we grow older we are less apt to try new things? Being a beginner at something seems scarier now than it did when we were kids. As adults, we focus most of our energy on developing our strengths so that we can be successful and accomplished, yet somewhere in that journey we lose the spontaneity and imagination that used to make our world so exciting. We begin to define ourselves in terms of the things we can’t or don’t do – I’m too old to jog, I am not a good speaker, I don’t like sailing, etc. instead of looking at all the possibilities open to us.

Recently, my partner and I decided that we should try our hand at skate-skiing. Being a retired downhill skier, the speed of the sport has always appealed to me. I would watch the skaters fly by us as we were trucking along in the tracks on our touring skis and think about how much fun it would be to go that fast. We decided to give it a try.

But before we could actually get out on the skis, we found ourselves having numerous discussions regarding our age, our physical stamina, our skiing ability, whether we should take lessons, the cost, where would be the best place to go, etc. It was very obvious that, at some level, we were trying to argue ourselves out of trying this new thing. After all, we always had a good time classic skiing; so why would we need to try skate-skiing, especially at this stage in our lives?

But luckily, the “kid” in each of us prevailed over our logical adult and off we went. We took a brief lesson to get some of the basics; but our goal for the day was not to conquer the sport - it was just to have a good time. It took a little while to get over the awkwardness of not really knowing what we were doing; but once we gave up worrying about looking good, things got easier. We were awesome on the downhills, struggled badly on the uphills, and just about broke even on the flats. We laughed, we fell, and we laughed some more. It was one of the best days of skiing we’ve had.

Looking back, we both agree that it wasn’t the skate-skiing that made the day so fun. It was the experience of trying something new, of stretching our comfort zone, and allowing our inner kid to remind us how simple having fun can really be.

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing. - Dale Carnegie