18:54
@bwDraco "rash and impulsive" is not a black-or-white thing, really. There are degrees to things like that. Sure, there are extremes on both ends, but nearly all people do not lie on either extreme.
I know that I was more rash and impulsive in my late teens and early twenties than I am now at 30, but I wasn't completely without regard for the consequences of my actions.
On the other hand, today I'm still willing to take calculated risks or make snap decisions when I'm very confident in my ability to deal with it, so I'm not completely unwilling to wade into the unknown.
Knowing when to be careful and when to JFDI (Just Fucking Do It) comes with experience being a person and living through situations in general.
Of course, we often place too much confidence in our past experience. A lot of this thing about "I'm old, so I know when to take risks and when not to" basically boils down to the person making an assertion about "I did X in a similar situation in the past, and either (1) It worked out well, so I should do X again; or (2) It worked out poorly, so I shouldn't do X again."
The funny thing about the real world is that, just because something worked or didn't work in the past, doesn't mean that it's going to be the same thing again a second time. We're often met with unpleasant surprises in that regard.
Even in baseball, there's a commonly held adage about "past performance is not an indicator of future success". So even if a player has a fantastic year in the major leagues, there is no guarantee that they won't be terrible next year.
In reality, nobody's really as certain or stoic or risk-averse or wise as they think they are, because in reality, no matter how important or powerful you are, human beings are very, very powerless about what happens in our environment, in general, even if it's just influencing other human beings to get what we want.
Nevermind the laws of physics often intervening despite our best wishes, like vehicles breaking down, falling and breaking your hip, earthquakes, extreme weather, blah blah.
We're nearly powerless, in reality, with money and stature having very little bearing on how powerful or "in control" we are.
Once you accept that and get over it, you can stop worrying so much. Your biggest problem now seems to be the degree to which you worry incessantly about your behavior. Stop focusing so much on what you're thinking and feeling, and you might find that you just start thinking and feeling more easily, and everything else will follow from that.
2
It's kind of like, if you think about your breathing, it's a lot more work to breathe... but if you let your body just breathe for you, it's effortless.
