One wonders at the differentiation. There is an instinct to live quietly, humbly-- to not make a fuss. But there comes a point where you have to imagine that this is a kind of cop-out. What you are doing instead is hiding from the world, exercising an avoidant personality, afraid of ever truly giving your best. What is one to do in such circumstances? 

There are twin fears, as most of us know. The one is the fear of failure, that you will find some essential quality lacking in yourself, the fear of inadequacy. The second one is the fear of success, that you will find yourself now under the burden of heightened expectation.

Hiding in a closet and waiting for death to overtake you is probably no kind of life. After all, death will arrive inevitably, so you might as well do something interesting in the meantime. Being circumspect will not alter that dreadful hour, nor will it spare you from having to face the supreme terror.

Hiding in closets,
Watching warily as a fox

'Til your eyes become twin black holes--
It avails us nothing.

So what if your flesh crumbles?
So what if your chest heaves and burns?

The best of men have flagged and failed.
Keats breathed his tubercular last

In a Roman room, despondent,
The last breath pining for home and love.

Oh, well. Never mind.
Better men than you have been exiled

And it is no shame
To shake a little before that deadly cold.

No point in hurrying it along, either.
Be as circumspect as you may

Or reckless as a shrike.
In the fullness of time

The ink has already dried.