the power of being a beginner at something new

lately, i’ve been thinking about how adulthood can flatten you. how it trains you to stay in the lanes you already know, to keep doing what you’re good at because it’s safer that way. people start to define you by your competencies — the work you excel at, the hobbies you’ve already mastered, the things they can point to and say: this is who you are. and without realizing it, you start to believe that stepping outside of that box is risky. like there’s something embarrassing about being bad at something once you’re grown. but i don’t think it’s embarrassment we’re afraid of. i think it’s the intimacy of being seen at the beginning of something. the way it reveals a softness in you — a part that hasn’t yet hardened into knowing. when was the last time you let yourself try something without a plan to be good at it? without needing to post about it or explain why you’re doing it? i ask myself that often, and the answers are not always flattering.