It’s good to have goals and interests – I have lots of both – but part of life is recognising that there are not unlimited hours in the day or in a life and to make choices about what to spend those hours on. These choices mean that there are things that one will just never do.

Now, this post is about conscious choices rather than circumstantial limits. So, much as I would like to be a fighter pilot, or an Olympic-level sportsman (in fencing, say, because I like fencing. Or volleyball) I have known for a long time that those choices were simply unavailable to me because of my vision alone. Everyone has these unavoidable constraints: physical limitations and mental barriers are just something to be accommodated.

I am also not thinking of activities which I just wouldn’t want to do. I have no interest in drugs, say, or country dancing, or hunting. Those are – regardless of my abilities – simply not attractive to me.

What I am interested in here are things that I might have done, but I chose to do something else instead.

Anyway, without further ado, these are some of the things I will never do.

Play An Instrument

I like music and I enjoy plucking strings and making noises with trumpets as much as the next person, but I don’t play an instrument beyond the most clumsy rote memorisation.

If I did I would probably enjoy playing occasionally now. It’s a dexterous skill and I take great pleasure in that kind of fine control. I like driving and cycling and wood working in large part because I am using my hands and my body in a coordinated and skillful way. It’s one of the reasons I liked fencing back when I did that.

But the fact is I did not learn to play any instrument as a child, and I do not want to spend the time to learn now.

Jump Out Of An Aeroplane

Heights don’t worry me and I like rollercoasters*. Doing a skydive would actually be enormous fun, I think.

However, my ankles are crap. I sprain one or the other once or twice a year. If I did a jump, I would be so worried about spraining an ankle when I landed that I would not be able to enjoy the experience, so really it’s just not worth even trying.

Build A Battle Robot

Back in the late 90s there was a show called Robot Wars on British TV. It was a lot of fun, and I had some ideas for building a robot to enter in that competition.

It was called Trilobot, and it would have been styled roughly in the form of a trilobite or horseshoe crab, with a curved shield at the front and an axe which would serve three purposes: to damage other robots; to flip other robots once they were wedged onto the shield; and to right trilobot itself.

I started collecting materials for it (at least for prototyping) and designing mechanisms. I even got a radio-controlled car kit so that I could learn more about that aspect of the endeavour.

But all of that was abandoned when I moved to the States instead.

Run A Competitive Marathon

I have run – or at least participated in – one marathon. It took a long time. I said afterwards that I would not do another marathon unless I felt there was a fair chance that I would be able to complete it in substantially less than four hours.

The timing of my marathon was deliberate – it was before my wife and I had children. I was fairly sure that it was the last realistic chance to be able to spend the time needed to train for such an event.

And I was completely right: I’ve entirely abandoned the idea of running another marathon because of the time commitment needed – the long training runs simply destroy your weekends.

So, much as I would love to be able to trot out and run a sub-four hour race or even a Boston qualifier, it’s not something I will ever do now.

Be An Actor

My sisters and I started our stage careers in the Green Room programme at our local playhouse. It was tremendous fun and I learned a lot.

But I haven’t acted on stage in thirty years or more. My sisters have both done many amateur productions, and the older of the two performs regularly at her local theatre to great acclaim.

I actually think I could have done some of that, and I use my acting skills in playing roleplaying games, for example. But I know the professional option has passed now – I will never play James Bond.

So, that is my slightly depressing list of things I will now never do. What are some of yours?

[*] although it does depend a little these days on the kind of rollercoaster.