The Fear to Fail

These new readings have brought new thoughts to me. One of the passages I read was:
"That I fail to cultivate Virtue, that I fail to inquire more deeply into that which I have learned, that upon hearing what is right I remain unable to move myself to do it, and that I prove unable to reform when I have done something wrong-such potential failings are a constant worry to me." (7.3). Is this not what everybody fears? Isn't our possible failure of doing things right what scares us all? Or even not being able to correct the mistakes we've done?
We all come across crossroads in life, each turning to different directions. They depend on the decisions we make, and not all of them are good choices. The problem is, we never know which choice is best, and in life, there isn't a certain way of knowing that. People can advice you, or even incite you to take certain ways, but only you are the one able to make you final choice. The possibility of failing is always there, and many times, we can't be as good as we expected we would be. As time goes by, we trip, fall, trip again, and fall again. Fortunately, we can learn from our mistakes and learn to trip less often. This is probably why Confucius thinks elders are wiser than young people. Many times, time can be related to wisdom. Like Confucius said:
"If I were granted many more years, and could devote fifty of them to learning, surely I would be able to be free of major faults." (7.17).
There is something that bothers me still. Is age really a sign of wisdom? True. Elders have had enough time to make mistakes and learn from them, but have they made the same mistakes as you have done during your shorter life time? During the time they have lived and you are starting to live, a lot of things change. People, as well as society in general change, and choices that might have been the right ones during that time might not be the best ones for this time. I think that what we should do is find a balance between preserving ancient values and traditions, and welcoming progress and new ways. In my opinion, both of the have great advantages.
However, there is only one thing that will never change, and that is that we are all humans. No matter what type of choices or paths we want to take, we will somehow fall in our path to success, and we will somehow get up and move on.