Turning 60: Is it too late in our lives to confront our fears?

Let's pretend that our lives are a yet-to-be-released movie, and we're still in the editing room. What would we change as we reviewed the footage, knowing that we could go back and edit things in or out? More importantly, how would that transformation change who we've become in our 60th year?

And for this exercise, you can't sell the stock in your 401k accounts before the stock market crash. I'm not talking about that kind of stuff. I'm talking about your lives in broad terms -- the way you've lived and what changes you'd make. I'm looking for deep soul-searching. It isn't easy, that's for sure.

Three years ago, actress Diane Keaton turned 60 and she was asked in an interview what she'd learned over all those years. She did not hesitate. "There is great value in being fearless," she said. "For too much of my life, I was too afraid, too frightened by it all. That fear is one of my biggest regrets. I wish I had put myself out there a little bit more and experienced people more instead of protecting myself."

I feel a bit like her. I wish I had taken more chances, especially in my 30s and 40s when the opportunities came along. Maybe that's what I would change in the edited movie of my life. I have had a great newspaper career and I clung to it -- unable to take chances on doing something else. I have been rewarded greatly for staying the course. But what have I missed? Would it have been better?

Even now I don't want to take chances, figuring that I have too much invested in the status quo to make bold changes. I tinker around the edges of change. I toy in my mind about bit edits in my movie -- but in the end I go back to the original script. It has given me comfort and I that's been important to me.

I think I need the security of what I know instead of the insecurity of what change may bring. I'm 60 days from 60, and I can't change my life script.