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I maintain the conviction that it is never too late to transform. My view is you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, provided that the mature being is willing and eager for knowledge. Provided that the old dog is prepared to acknowledge when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a improved version.

Well, admittedly, the metaphor applies to me. And the trick I am working to acquire, despite the fact that I am a creature of habit? It is an significant challenge, an issue I have struggled with, repeatedly, for my whole existence. I have been trying … to grow less fearful of huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be realistic about my potential for change as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is imposing, dominant, and the one I encounter most often. Including on three separate occasions in the previous seven days. Within my dwelling. You can’t see me, but a shudder runs through me with discomfort as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I’ve been working on at least achieving a standard level of composure about them.

I have been terrified of spiders from my earliest years (unlike other children who find them delightful). Growing up, I had plenty of male siblings around to make sure I never had to engage with any directly, but I still freaked out if one was clearly in the general area as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and attempting to manage a spider that had crawled on to the family room partition. I “managed” with it by standing incredibly far away, practically in the adjoining space (lest it pursued me), and spraying half a bottle of bug repellent toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and irritate everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whoever I was dating or cohabiting with was, as a matter of course, the most courageous of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore tasked with handling the situation, while I made low keening sounds and fled the scene. When finding myself alone, my tactic was simply to leave the room, douse the illumination and try to forget about its existence before I had to re-enter.

Not long ago, I stayed at a pal's residence where there was a very large huntsman who resided within the window frame, for the most part hanging out. As a means to be less fearful, I imagined the spider as a her, a gal, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and listening to us yap. This may seem quite foolish, but it had an impact (to some degree). Put another way, making a conscious choice to become more fearless proved successful.

Regardless, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I know they consume things like flies and mosquitoes (my mortal enemies). I know they are one of the world's exquisite, benign creatures.

Alas, they do continue to scuttle like that. They move in the most terrifying and borderline immoral way imaginable. The sight of their numerous appendages propelling them at that terrible speed triggers my ancient psyche to go into high alert. They claim to only have eight legs, but I maintain that increases exponentially when they move.

However it is no fault of their own that they have unnerving limbs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I have discovered that employing the techniques of working to prevent have a visceral panic reaction and run away when I see one, attempting to stay composed and breathing steadily, and intentionally reflecting about their positive qualities, has actually started to help.

Simply due to the reality that they are fuzzy entities that move hastily with startling speed in a way that haunts my sleep, is no reason for they merit my intense dislike, or my shrieks of terror. I am willing to confess when my reactions have been misguided and driven by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “scooping one into plasticware and escorting it to the garden” level, but you never know. There’s a few years left in this veteran of life yet.