I started seriously learning to skateboard about five years ago. I came to a surfskate class, but I was also drawn to classic skateboarding, so I asked the coach whether it made sense for an adult to learn to ride a regular skateboard. And he said: “Well, only if you have a lot of time.”

He meant that it’s much easier for an adult to learn and enjoy surfskating than skateboarding, and that learning to skateboard takes a lot of time, which an adult usually doesn’t have.

Back then I listened to him, but a couple of years later I came to classic skateboarding anyway, and I’ve been skating since, and I agree - it’s hard and slow, especially when you’re a not-so-young chickenshit. But I don’t regret this time one bit, and I don’t consider it wasted. Yes, I still watch “tricks for beginners” videos, there are probably things I’ll never be able to learn, but I definitely have progress, and I absolutely get enjoyment even at the level I’m at now. This spending of time is in itself one of the most valuable things I could have done with my time.

This led me to a thought: the time will pass anyway, and if you’re afraid you’ll spend time on something and not reach any meaningful result in it (and I often catch myself thinking this), then consider that you’re choosing between learning something, getting some experience and enjoyment, and getting nothing at all. I’m 46, and you could assume I have another 20 years (or more) to develop, to search for my path and style, and to enjoy it. And yet I could have decided that several years to learn skateboarding is a bad investment, and it’s too late to start, and I would have deprived myself of those 20 years of enjoyment. When I think about it this way, it gets genuinely scary.

A fair objection would be that we can choose between several activities, not between something and its absence. In that case, of course, other considerations come into play - for example, you might choose the thing where you have a better chance of reaching higher results in the time you have. But does that mean you’ll get more enjoyment and experience? That’s not such a simple question.