Pretending to have no ambition in order to escape shame of lack of acheivements?

Failure is lack of trying; success is trying. And trying again. And again. Once it’s something that’s safe!

I had an ambition to fly an airplane solo ever since I was terrified of the experience during my first ever flight aged 14 aboard a Cessna 172 on pretty rough weather. It was an extremely bumpy flight, and my Dad had hired the plane with a qualified instructor who let him stall the plane “for fun”. So my first ever flight incorporated a heavy nosedive with the pilot and my father laughing their heads off and myself whimpering on terror in the rear. I decided there and then I would be master if this and be able to handle exactly the same situation comfortably and confidently. I read tons about flying, stealing a book from the library where I worked as pilot’s manuals were an absolute fortune and rare as hens teeth. I intended to return the book, but much to my shame I didn’t.

It made a pilot of me along with lessons from the famous Captain Darby Kennedy who gave me my wings aged 20. Unfortunately upon renewal, my license was redacted because I failed the eyesight requirements of the day.

The wonderful thing is I am still able to fly with a qualified instructor supervising, and as these instructors say “you never forget it, your muscle memory is all there”. I think flying all the time so it is ingrained in my head and ready to go when I get onto the controls. U subsequently brought a friend with camera in back who was very nervous when instructor allowed me to complete the landing as he had his fingers interlocked behind neck. “We’re getting very close to the ground” Thrn the stall warning goes off, as it ought to in a Cessna 172 at the point of moment touchdown, when there was a “whoa!!!!” from my friend as the wheels very gently nudged the runway. “There, you didn’t trust her did you - that was a class landing!”

I have any number of ongoing ambitions, my attitude is I can do almost anything. Aged 60 my brain is sharper than it ever was and I’m learning all sorts of stuff. My late aunt was learning and doing new unfamiliar stuff until age 88 when she died suddenly of a stroke. She pushed herself to learn and in her last year of life declared likewise that her brain was never so active as it was now because of the challenges she set herself.

No harm trying anything. Flying is good if you can sacrifice something else to afford occasional lessons. If you want to go solo you must prove yourself safe and competent to get the validation, but even if you don’t go that whole hog you can have fun. Try helicoptering once or twice, great for the brain if you study the aerodynamics ahead of your lesson or two and imagine the machine responding to your gentle and appropriate inputs.

Taking up a musical instrument, learning a new language, trying sailing, painting, sculpture, woodwork is great.

If you have physical limitations learning tech/programming is a great way of manipulating your neural connections and could be very useful especially these days. I’m learning all that stuff. Have crammed in JavaScript, CSS (one that everyone finds tricky but oddly I find fun because of my visual way of thinking), Python (a grand easy beginners coding), SQL to query databases, the shell of various operating systems. I find if I learn stuff all in parallel it cross-feeds in helping me learn. I find the more I learn, the more able I am to learn more.

So yes, I broadly declare my ambitions. I am trying, that is success. Cherry on the cake is when I start earning a bit from my efforts, but I don’t actually need to do that.