A few years ago Cornell University conducted a survey of a wide range of people to find out what people most regret. They discovered that twice as many people were bothered more by what they did not do rather than what they had done. Missed opportunities were the most common of all regrets. Most of them were about being unwilling to take chances and being more afraid of the short term consequences of failure than the long term benefits of success.
It reminds me of that story Jesus told about a king who gave money to each of his servants to put to use. The only one who was finally condemned was the one who was so afraid of losing the money that he buried it and did nothing. God doesn’t call us to be gamblers, but in the game of life he does expect us to be calculated risk takers