In my 20's I used to think life was very linear
X needs to happen at this stage , Y needs to happen at that stage , I wouldn't do this , I wouldn't try that , this is wrong , this is good
In reality it's all one big rollercoaster , its just how big and how high do you want to build yours and yea of course theres always that risk something could go wrong
But really if you aren't intentionally hurting someone else and doing seriously wrong things everything else is just life experience
some people like flatline / low risk lifestyles which is fine but I believe its how a lot of midlife crisis start