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I firmly hold the belief that it is always possible to transform. My view is you can in fact train a seasoned creature, as long as the experienced individual is willing and ready for growth. Provided that the person is ready to confess when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a better dog.

Alright, I confess, I am the old dog. And the trick I am attempting to master, although I am decrepit? It is an important one, something I have battled against, often, for my entire life. I have been trying … to develop a calmer response toward those large arachnids. Pardon me, all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my possible growth as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is large, dominant, and the one I encounter most often. This includes on three separate occasions in the previous seven days. Within my dwelling. Though unseen, but I'm grimacing at the very thought as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but my project has been at least achieving Normal about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders dating back to my youth (unlike other children who adore them). Growing up, I had plenty of male siblings around to guarantee I never had to confront any directly, but I still became hysterical if one was visibly in the same room as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and trying to deal with a spider that had crawled on to the living room surface. I “handled” with it by retreating to a remote corner, nearly crossing the threshold (lest it pursued me), and emptying a significant portion of bug repellent toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it managed to annoy and irritate everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whomever I was in a relationship with or cohabiting with was, by default, the least afraid of spiders in our pairing, and therefore tasked with managing the intruder, while I produced frightened noises and ran away. When finding myself alone, my strategy was simply to leave the room, turn off the light and try to erase the memory of its presence before I had to enter again.

Recently, I was a guest at a pal's residence where there was a notably big huntsman who resided within the sill, primarily lingering. As a means to be more comfortable with its presence, I envisioned the spider as a her, a one of the girls, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and eavesdropping on us yap. This may seem extremely dumb, but it was effective (somewhat). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become less scared proved successful.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I think about all the sensible justifications not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I know they eat things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). I am cognizant they are one of the planet's marvelous, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Alas, they do continue to move like that. They travel in the most terrifying and borderline immoral way conceivable. The appearance of their many legs propelling them at that alarming velocity induces my ancient psyche to enter panic mode. They are said to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I believe that increases exponentially when they get going.

However it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I have discovered that taking the steps of working to prevent instantly leap out of my body and retreat when I see one, attempting to stay calm and collected, and intentionally reflecting about their positive qualities, has begun to yield results.

The mere fact that they are fuzzy entities that dart around extremely quickly in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my high-pitched vocalizations. I can admit when I’ve been wrong and fueled by irrational anxiety. It is uncertain I’ll ever reach the “catching one in a Tupperware container and escorting it to the garden” stage, but you never know. A bit of time remains left in this veteran of life yet.