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I maintain the conviction that it is forever an option to evolve. I think you truly can instruct a veteran learner, as long as the old dog is open-minded and ready for growth. Provided that the old dog is willing to admit when it was in error, and strive to be a improved version.

Well, admittedly, the metaphor applies to me. And the skill I am attempting to master, although I am set in my ways? It is an important one, an issue I have struggled with, often, for my all my days. I have been trying … to grow less fearful of huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be grounded about my possible growth as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is large, commanding, and the one I run into regularly. Encompassing three times in the previous seven days. In my own living space. Though unseen, but I’m shaking my head at the very thought as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least achieving a standard level of composure about them.

I have been terrified of spiders from my earliest years (unlike other children who find them delightful). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to ensure I never had to engage with any personally, but I still freaked out if one was visibly in the same room as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and trying to deal with a spider that had ascended the family room partition. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, practically in the adjoining space (lest it pursued me), and discharging a generous amount of pesticide toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and disturb everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whoever I was dating or living with was, as a matter of course, the bravest of spiders between us, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I emitted frightened noises and beat a hasty retreat. When finding myself alone, my strategy was simply to leave the room, turn off the light and try to forget about its being before I had to enter again.

In a recent episode, I was a guest at a pal's residence where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who lived in the casement, for the most part stationary. To be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a her, a gal, one of us, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us chat. It sounds rather silly, but it had an impact (to some degree). Alternatively, making a conscious choice to become less phobic proved successful.

Whatever the case, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I contemplate all the logical reasons not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I know they consume things like insect pests (the bane of my existence). It is well-established they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to move like that. They propel themselves in the most terrifying and almost unjust way imaginable. The vision of their numerous appendages transporting them at that terrible speed causes my ancient psyche to kick into overdrive. They ostensibly only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I maintain that triples when they are in motion.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have unnerving limbs, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I’ve found that implementing the strategy of making an effort to avoid instantly leap out of my body and run away when I see one, attempting to stay still and breathing, and deliberately thinking about their positive qualities, has proven somewhat effective.

Simply due to the reality that they are fuzzy entities that move hastily extremely quickly in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my girly screams. I can admit when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by irrational anxiety. I’m not sure I’ll ever attain the “catching one in a Tupperware container and taking it outside” phase, but one can't be sure. There’s a few years for this seasoned learner yet.