Everyone is a beginner, once

Kunta Kinta Island, The Gambia

As a perfectionist, it’s very hard for me to admit that I don’t know something. It’s hard for me to ask for help, even when I don’t know what I am doing. I feel embarrassed, ashamed for not just instinctually knowing how the world works around me. Especially when I have convinced myself that it is only me who doesn’t know. That everyone else already does, or has someone who whispers this information in their ears before they would even have to ask.

In some ways, it reflects how I feel alone.

I have gotten better over the years, and I have not been afraid to throw myself wholeheartedly into something new. In the past, it was easier for me to jump on a plane and head to a destination where I knew no one and nothing, not even how to say “hello” in the local language. It that context, I could not help to be a beginner, a newbie, a foreigner. Everyone around me would automatically know that just by looking at me.

But it’s different here, in these contexts. The context of the grown-up world, the context of the country I live in. But none of the contexts are unique to me. Everyone around me is doing things for the first time everyday. Each one of the them is constantly learning, just like me. Those are the rationals I give myself to try to not get down on myself, to not feel like it’s “just me” who is experiencing them. But nevertheless, I still do.

It’s hard to live in a place where you did not grow up but you want to fit in. I remind myself that no matter where I lived, I would still have questions. No matter where I lived, things would still wrong, and things would still also go right. Even if I had never left my hometown, never moved abroad or taken any risks, things still could wrong. Things go wrong everyday. So why not go after what it is that I really want? Things could wrong, but they could also go right.

I have a vision of my life, five, ten years from now. Then, I won’t be a beginner anymore. By then, I will have a system, a routine, a team of people around me I can call on. But I don’t have that yet. To get there, I have to go out, take action. I have to do things for the first time. Scary things. I have to make decisions, and then make new decisions, because you don’t always get it right on the first try. I will have to call people on the phone and introduce myself without them knowing that on the other end of the line is someone who is earnest, and hardworking, and just trying to get her foot in the door. I am really, really scared. But I can honestly say that I am more scared that I will wake up in a year and have not taken any action. The past few months have been some of the darkest months of my life, a wake-up call that without me taking action, I’m not going to go anywhere. Those dreams that seem within my reach? Everyday that I stay still they move farther away. If I need to get over anything, it is my fear of beginning. You only need to do something for the first time once. So don’t hesitate, get that first time out of the way. Once you’ve knocked down that wall of fear, the path is clear for you to continue. There is nothing standing in your way.

love,

greer