wife, kids, in your early twenties? if you aint got the means to support them dont get married. theres no reason you cant get married in your late twenties or early thirties, this easily gives you 5 to 10 years to dedicate to what you want to do, and if you it doesnt work out then whats the big deal, loads of people have to re evaluate things at some point in their lives, and being in your late twenties is by no stretch too old to "get serious" if things dont work out.
secondly so what if your regarded as a failiure by others? doest mean you cant do something else. id respect someone more for taking a risk personally.
Even if you are in your early twenties and are unmarried, in fact if you still don't have a job, you still don't have the full freedom to do what you like and pursue your interests because in any case, it will either involve both or one of the following two aspects:
1. Money 2. Time
If it involves money, and you are not earning yourself yet, you will be worried about not wasting what your parents earned, just because you want to pursue a dream of yours. What will you do if it does not work out and you lose it all?
Even if it does not involve money, it will surely involve time and again, it's a trade-off - will you risk not giving enough time to your education and not getting a professional qualification and instead, use this time to pursue your dream? Yes you can always go back to university at some point later on if it does not work for you, but what about the social pressures? How willing will your parents be for you to put your education aside for a few years and experiment? In our society and culture, you cannot do things at your own pace - you have to keep up with the world or will you be left behind.
your only real responsibility in your early twenties should be, at most, your parents, if your the oldest your parents pbly can still economically support themselves whilst your young, and if your not then you may have siblings you can share the burden with. situations where a child must immediately provide for their parents are few and far between in the economically developed world (which is this sites primary audience)
the choice you describe is unrealistically stark, there is no profession that if you have some competence in (other than maybe being a poet) that would leave you destitute. the question is whether earning less in the short term is worth it, for greater returns, both fiscal and non monetary in the long term.
people are risk averse because the world tells us that failure is shameful.
everyone succeeds and fails all the time, its just that society sees large failures as somehow worse than small failings when in reality failing small means you never had the faith in yourself to give it everything, and in doing so you made failure ever the more likely.
it is the large failings that should be lauded because when you give something everything and fail, then you are wiser for knowing either you did something wrong, or you were never good enough in the first place.
Even if you are single and have just got a job, your main goal will be to maintain a balance between enjoying a good living standard and saving/investing for the future. Why? because you know that one day you'll have a family of your own which will depend on you. You cannot blow away your money right now because no one is depending on you, because you have to consider your financial status 10-15 years down the line.
People are not risk-averse because other people tell them that failing is bad; people are risk-averse because of the negative consequences of their risks not paying off. Different prospects have different risks, and the trade-off is not worth it for most people in the world which is why majority of us don't like to take risks and thus remain ignorant of our true potential.
I feel you are being too harsh on people who take the safe route (majority of us are like that) because when you look at the bigger picture, the guilt and regret of things not working out is greater than the potential feeling of accomplishment.
If its your parents' money, you won't risk wasting it;
if its your time, you won't risk wasting it over something that may not yield rewards in the future, which is why most of us end up taking the safe route of going to University to get a professional degree;
If it involves your own money, you still won't risk it because you have one eye on the future and will look to save, because you know you will have to sustain a family in the future;
If you have a wife and children, you will not take risks so that they don't have to face the consequences and they are your responsibility.
Most of the people don't take risks because of the aforementioned reasons and they fall in these categories. Simply knowing (after you have failed) that you are wiser for it or you were not good enough in the first place is not good enough for most of the people in the practical world, which is why they are fully justified in not taking risks, but on the other hand, those that do and succeed are the ones that are remembered and revered.
)
