Becoming a beginner
I’ve almost always tried to avoid being a beginner.
Primarily by not beginning many things at all.
I stuck to the subjects, jobs, and even hobbies that came naturally, that I could master quickly. (My GPAs in high school and college looked impressive, but they were propped on intimidating classes not taken, challenging teachers not learned from, and interests not pursued. )
When I did have to face something new, I worked much harder than was necessary so that I could exit beginner status as soon as possible. And I would keep quiet about that extra work, implying to other beginners in the group that I was advancing without the effort normally required of–you got it–beginners. Because I really wasn’t one (ha!).
There are lots of us who avoid being beginners, but my particular brand of beginner avoidance stems from being a Three, an Achiever who derives value from mastery and external recognition. And we Threes of the “self-preservation” subtype have yet another layer to contend with on this subject because we want to be seen as excelling but don’t want to actually draw any attention to our own achievements. So instead we have to rely on being so damn good at stuff that people can’t help but notice and praise us.
When excelling is the only acceptable option, beginning can only be classified as its opposite: failing.
And then, praise be, I got to a point in my life where I was miserable enough to shift my calculus from trying to avoid “failure” to instead pursuing sources of joy. So I started doing things I’d always been drawn to but hadn’t felt I had the talent (or body) for, like dance and photography. Things that I would never be the best at but that fed me in a playful, soulful way.
If I’m honest, I still have days when I want to quit both of them entirely because I’m entertaining that bully Mastery again. But I have many more days when I legitimately enjoy being a beginner, not just for the opportunities to say “yes” it affords me but also for the habits of mind and heart it requires.
Beginners open to the boundless unknown. They sanctify the present moment with the power of their conscious attention because nothing is yet automatic.
They accept that they do not know. And open to those who do. They listen generously and ask rather than declare. They are the children to the teacher’s adult.
They stumble, are corrected, and continue not because to do so is noteworthy or impressive but because falling down (repeatedly) is doing it right. It’s adhering to the natural order of things, where value doesn’t depend on running before walking. Nor does it rely on a hierarchy of skill.
In fact, the process isn’t about value at all but instead about wonder. And challenge. About seeing and being seen anew.
To begin is to drop mastery’s smooth veneer, laying bare the raw and the real. It is the lowering of defenses against external judgments and the infinitely more painful internal ones.
It is showing up to be witnessed not as good but as trying. Not as arrived but as wanting. The kind of wanting that overflows capability’s container and maybe always will.
Being a beginner is an immersion in the confusion and excitement of a foreign land where not even the grocery store feels mundane. And then choosing to stay in that magical, overwhelming place long enough for it to feel like home.
What experiences would you make space for if you took achievement, attention, validation, control, and mastery out of the equation? What would you try? What would you keep doing?
And how would that which you’ve already mastered be transformed if you became a beginner anew?