Speaking as someone who must daily turn away people because they have no insurance or the kind of insurance that you can buy for yourself on a limited income, I would say this is nothing to shrug off.
No, but fear stops far more than lack of talent. So many just assume they're going to fail, assume they'll have so little money they can't afford to pay the bills or buy insurance, are so afraid of taking a chance that they die still doing little more than making ends meet. That's a poor way to live. This would scare me far more than taking a chance.
The plain fact is that very few people are doing anything more than living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, even if they have health insurance, and all sorts of other benefits. One little disaster, one crack in the economic dam, one emergency they didn't count on, and they're worse off than any writer who takes a chance.
I'd rather take a chance while the taking is good than to wait to long and be stuck living on social security.
And it really doesn't take very much money to buy excellent private health insurance.
It's been my experience that the great majority of people fall into one of two groups: Those who have so much money they don't need to take a chance, and those who have so little they can't afford
not to take a chance, if they ever want to do more than work for someone else for forty years, and then retire on peanuts.
And I don't think many would just drop everything, but if you can take a chance, if you can earn six months income just from writing, it's really not that much of a chance.
Employable people do not stop being employable because they take a chance. Smart people stay smart, wise people stay wise, hard-working people stay hard0working, and there's a severe shortage of smart, wise, hard-working people in the work force.
Successful people take chances. If they fail, they take another chance. Sooner or later, they succeed.