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I firmly hold the belief that it is never too late to change. My view is you can in fact teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the old dog is receptive and ready for growth. Provided that the old dog is prepared to acknowledge when it was in error, and endeavor to transform into a better dog.

OK yes, the metaphor applies to me. And the skill I am working to acquire, although I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, something I have battled against, repeatedly, for my all my days. I have been trying … to develop a calmer response toward the common huntsman. Apologies to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my potential for change as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is sizeable, commanding, and the one I encounter most often. This includes on three separate occasions in the recent past. Inside my home. You can’t see me, but I'm grimacing with discomfort as I type.

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

I have been terrified of spiders since I was a child (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). During my childhood, I had plenty of male siblings around to ensure I never had to handle any directly, but I still freaked out if one was obviously in the same room as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and trying to deal with a spider that had made its way onto the family room partition. I “managed” with it by standing incredibly far away, almost into the next room (for fear that it ran after me), and emptying a significant portion of insect spray toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it managed to annoy and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, my romantic partner at the time or living with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders between us, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I made low keening sounds and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my method was simply to vacate the area, turn off the light and try to forget about its presence before I had to return.

Recently, I visited a pal's residence where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the window frame, mostly just hanging out. In order to be more comfortable with its presence, I conceptualized the spider as a her, a girlie, part of the group, just lounging in the sun and listening to us chat. It sounds extremely dumb, but it had an impact (a little bit). Alternatively, making a conscious choice to become less phobic did the trick.

Be that as it may, I’ve tried to keep it up. I think about all the rational arguments not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I know they prey upon things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). I am cognizant they are one of the world's exquisite, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to walk like that. They propel themselves in the deeply alarming and borderline immoral way imaginable. The appearance of their many legs transporting them at that terrible speed causes my ancient psyche to go into high alert. They claim to only have a standard octet of limbs, but I believe that triples when they move.

However it isn’t their fault that they have frightening appendages, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. My experience has shown that taking the steps of making an effort to avoid immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, working to keep still and breathing, and deliberately thinking about their beneficial attributes, has proven somewhat effective.

Just because they are furry beings that move hastily at an alarming rate in a way that haunts my sleep, is no reason for they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. I am willing to confess when I’ve been wrong and driven by baseless terror. I’m not sure I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” phase, but miracles happen. There’s a few years left in this veteran of life yet.