The Start Will Feel Awkward

The other day I was having a conversation with my daughter about interests. She was expressing an interest in area of her life and said, “I don’t want to have to do all the hard work, I just want to be really good at it.”

She said it to be silly and we both laughed but she emphasized a really good point. Most of us want to be the expert, not the newbie. We dislike being awkward. We don’t like the difficulties of figuring it out. Wouldn’t it be so much better if we can just have the talent without the training?

It seems like that would be perfect. It seems like life would be so much better if we could just plug in like the Matrix movies and instantly download the latest karate skills. Or, we could speak a new language by just changing our mind.   

We could challenge Michael Jordon in basketball. We could do flips on a balance beam like Simone Biles. We could sing like Whitney Houston or John Lennon. Oh what a world it would be if we could have all that skill without any work or effort on our part.

Hopefully you are starting to see that I am being sarcastic. If everyone in the world could sing like Whitney Houston, we wouldn’t appreciate her songs. The Tao Te Ching is an ancient text, written 2,500 years ago. In it, the author, Lao Tzu, communicates by emphasizing the paradoxical aspects of life. One of them is that for there to be beauty, there must be ugliness.

In other words, for us to have one extreme end of the spectrum, we need the full spectrum. We need that contrast for definition purposes. If we remove one end of the spectrum, nobody would value the gifted, because everyone would have it.

We need to have variability in our lives. Many argue the world would be better if everything was completely equal. But that isn’t possible. There are too many variables, but those variables are what makes us who we are. What makes us unique defines us.

Some will be blessed with skills and some will not. It leaves a world of variety and choice. We can choose to improve in certain areas. Most want the rewards from the work, but few will take the steps in the beginning.

This leaves us capable of such greatness in our own ways. We can define what we want. We can chase what is important to us. We can become anything we want, but we need to take the difficult steps that few are brave enough to tackle. Most importantly, we need to start.

We need to feel that awkwardness in the early stages. We need to fumble our way through. We need to understand that improvement is the greatest gift of humanity. The animal kingdom lacks this ability because they can’t think at the highest levels as humans.

Therefore, we need to appreciate those awkward moments. We need to appreciate the pain and struggle. Without it, nothing matters. Without it, we don’t utilize our human gifts. If there is something you want, don’t be afraid to start. You may find that the improvement journey from newbie to expert is more fun than being the expert anyways.