Dear E, Don't Be Afraid to Be a Beginner

Dear E,

I can still picture you when you were little, trying to do something that didn't come easily.

"I can't do it!"

You'd throw your hands up into the air, sit down, and surrender in defeat. Sometimes you had hardly even begun before deciding that whatever you were trying to accomplish was simply beyond your abilities.

And goodness gracious, E, you could get frustrated! Ha!

Sometimes it seemed that you hated the thought of even trying something if you weren't confident you could do it. The possibility of failing was enough to make you want to give up before you ever really started.

I remember those moments, and they've been on my mind lately because I've started to recognize something familiar in myself.

You see, I'm trying to learn Spanish as I write this letter to you today, and goodness gracious, I'm getting frustrated, too!

Sometimes I feel like I'm making progress, and other times I struggle to remember a word I learned just a few minutes earlier. I know what I want to say, but getting my mouth to cooperate is another matter entirely.

And you know what I've discovered?

Sometimes I want to throw my hands up and say the very same thing you used to say.

"I can't do it!"

Perhaps you and I have more in common than you realize.

But this frustration reminded me of something I've slowly come to understand over the years.

Learning something new often comes with resistance.

Whenever I've started a new job, attended a new school, or tried to learn a new skill, I've experienced this same feeling. Nothing seems to come easily. You can't find your classroom. You don't know where anything is located. Someone asks you to complete a seemingly simple task that everyone else can do without thinking, and there you are, struggling to figure it out.

It's difficult. It's frustrating. And sometimes it makes you question your own abilities.

But you know, E, after all these years, it has finally started to occur to me that this is normal.

Now, I realize I'm not offering anything revolutionary here. Of course others might say, "Well, everyone knows that learning something new can be difficult."

And they would be right.

But I want to tell you this because it's something I've particularly struggled with throughout my life. And when I remember those moments of you throwing your hands into the air, I wonder if perhaps this is something you will struggle with, too.

You see, sometimes the resistance we encounter when learning something new doesn't merely frustrate us.

Sometimes it keeps us from trying altogether.

You might find yourself thinking about all the things you'd like to do. Perhaps there's a skill you've always wanted to learn, a career you'd like to pursue, or an opportunity you've dreamed about taking.

You imagine what life might look like if you made that change. You consider the possibilities, think through what could happen, and even wish your life were different.

But you never take the first step.

Why?

Well, perhaps you're afraid of failing.

I know I was.

I hated failure, E. I hated how it made me feel when I couldn't understand something that seemed obvious to everyone else. I especially hated the thought of biting the dust with an audience watching.

There's something particularly humbling about struggling in front of someone who makes the same task look effortless.

And I think, looking back, I sometimes confused being bad at something with being incapable of ever becoming good at it.

Those are two very different things.

I want to share something with you from Ecclesiastes 11:4. Solomon observes that the person who watches the wind will not sow, and the one who looks at the clouds will not reap.

Think about the farmer for a moment.

He has a field to plant, but he's constantly studying the conditions. Perhaps the wind isn't quite right. Maybe the clouds suggest rain. Tomorrow might be better, he reasons.

So he waits.

And waits.

Until eventually, the opportunity to plant has passed him by.

Now, I don't believe Solomon is telling us to make reckless decisions or abandon wisdom and preparation. But there is something worth considering here.

If we insist that every condition be perfect before beginning something difficult, we may never begin at all.

And E, I don't want that for you.

There's another example in Scripture that I've come to appreciate.

In Acts 18:24–26, we're introduced to a man named Apollos. He was an eloquent speaker, knowledgeable in the Scriptures, and enthusiastic about teaching others concerning Jesus.

He was clearly a capable man.

But he didn't know everything.

When Priscilla and Aquila heard him teaching, they took him aside and explained the way of God to him more accurately.

Isn't that interesting?

Here was an intelligent, gifted man who still had something to learn.

And rather than presenting him as someone who had already arrived at complete understanding, Scripture shows us that even a capable teacher could benefit from further instruction.

I think there's something beautiful about that.

You don't have to know everything. You don't even have to be particularly good at something when you first begin.

You just have to be willing to learn.

And sometimes that means admitting you don't know something, accepting correction, or making mistakes in front of people who have been doing it longer than you.

I wish I had understood that when I was younger.

Maybe I would've tried more things. Maybe I would've worried less about looking foolish and spent more time enjoying the process of discovering something new.

But I can't go back and change those decisions.

I can, however, encourage you to make different ones.

And that's what I want to do today.

I'm not going to give you some grand motivational speech about how you can accomplish absolutely anything you set your mind to. Life doesn't work that way. There will be things you try that simply don't work out, no matter how much effort you put into them.

And that's okay.

But I do believe there are wonderful things you may be capable of that you'll never discover if you let the fear of failure make every decision for you.

You will fail at things, E.

Goodness knows your Papa has.

You'll misunderstand instructions, embarrass yourself, make mistakes, and occasionally wonder why you ever thought trying something new was a good idea.

And when that happens, I want you to remember that being a beginner is not something to be ashamed of.

Everyone who has become proficient at something was once unfamiliar with it.

The person who speaks another language fluently once struggled with simple words. The experienced employee was once the new person who didn't know where anything was. The skilled musician once struggled to play a single song.

They had to begin somewhere.

And so do you.

But there's something else I want you to remember.

You must not settle into things that require no effort!

You may sink into habits that simulate learning and growth yet you go no where in life.

Mine was video games.

Am I saying that video games are bad? No, nor is what you love as recreation.

However, don’t settle into easy things that cause you to never leave your comfort zone.

I don't love you because you're good at something. I love you because you're my daughter.

And while I hope you accomplish wonderful things in your life, my love for you has never depended upon those accomplishments.

I've watched you grow, E. I've seen you discover new things, attempt things you didn't understand, and gradually become capable of doing things that once seemed impossible.

And I'm proud of you.

I was proud of you even when you threw your little hands into the air and declared that you couldn't do something.

Of course, I wanted you to keep trying. I wanted you to discover that you were capable of more than you thought. But your failures never made you any less precious to me.

And they never will.

So here's my encouragement to you.

When something interests you, give it a try.

When it gets difficult, don't immediately assume that means you aren't capable.

When you make a mistake, learn from it.

And when you fail, don't let that failure convince you that you should never have tried.

Be willing to be a beginner.

Be willing to ask questions.

Be willing to look a little foolish sometimes.

And above all, don't allow the fear of what others might think to rob you of opportunities to grow.

I hope you'll be better at this than your Papa has been.

And perhaps one day, when you're sitting there trying to learn something difficult, you'll feel that familiar frustration beginning to rise. You'll want to throw your hands into the air and declare that you simply cannot do it.

When that moment comes, E, I hope you'll remember this letter.

I hope you'll remember that the difficulty you're experiencing doesn't necessarily mean you've reached the limits of your abilities. Perhaps it simply means you're learning.

And I hope you'll have the courage to try again.

As for me, I suppose I'll return to learning Spanish.

I still have a lot to learn, and I'm sure I'll stumble through plenty more words before I can carry on a proper conversation.

But perhaps that's part of the lesson.

I'm not very good at it yet.

And that's okay.

Maybe some day you can read this letter and say, “Papa did learn Spanish eventually, and I can learn what I want too…. eventually.”

I love you, E.

Papa