Why does the audacity of a person reduce with his age? Is it the fear of losing his life? Fear of losing his face? Or the imminent realization of his mortality?
When a boy is young and he takes out a vehicle, you can feel the thrill (or dread if you happen to be the pillion rider) when he negotiates a turn. This later becomes a careful and slow (yet continuous) turn and finally when he comes of age, it becomes a wait-watch-turn procedure. We now say this guy has attained wisdom.
But have we ever inventoried all that he had lost to gain that wisdom? Have we ever wondered whether this attitude is carried on into other areas of work? And what its effect had been?
Okay, I am not preaching recklessness in the name of audacity. But I feel that by forgetting that grief & joy, success failure have been bed partners since time immemorial and by trying to shut out the possibility of failure – we deprive ourselves of possibly higher and greater success.
Risk taking – a judicious one at that – has to be encouraged. Of course, this would entail a fall here and a fall there. But it would also ensure that our life is filled with a running stream of water and not a stagnant one.