Future Here Now: the joy of the beginner’s mind

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I bet that a lot of us get blue or depressed as the year comes to a close. I know I do.

The closing of the year always makes me acutely aware of everything I haven’t lived up to — the projects that I didn’t make happen, the money that I didn’t make, the people I didn’t go to visit, the travel that I didn’t do. Maybe it’s the gray days and the cold, but Yuletide Cheer might come more easily to me if it didn’t come at Yuletide.

So this article resonated a little extra — not only because so much of my platform and my thinking is built on the idea of breaking our accustomed paradigms, anticipating how the world is changing, etc., but also because I find the idea that we can begin again, no matter how long we’ve been doing it the old way….there’s a comfort in that for me. This year as much as most, I need that encouragement. I need to do a hard reset.

This part really struck me. And encouraged me in ways I don’t fully understand.

The benefits of the beginner’s mind are well documented. The absence of expectation is a boon to the human experience, an open mind is key.

But aside from all that, being a perpetual beginner has other benefits as well. A life of learning keeps things fresh. The connections between disparate ideas and skills become apparent. And when a hopeful beginning ends in abject failure, as it did when I earned my motorcycle license, despite driving a scooter into a ditch, one not only learns about the benefits of failure, but that a whole new beginning lies in wait.

A whole new beginning lies in wait.

…

Future Here Now LinkedIn is an abbreviated version of the newsletter that Future Here Now subscribers receive every week. If you like this, you will find FHN very useful. Check out our subscriptions options here.

I got my first tattoo ever this year, at the hoary age of 53 (It was supposed to be for my 50th birthday, but a combination of pandemic and a massive, massive needle phobia slowed the train a loooot).

It’s a line of text from one of my favorite song, on the inside of my forearm, maybe a third of an inch tall. Really, really simple:

It’s time to begin.

It’s time to begin.

A whole new beginning lies in wait.

Let’s go get ’em.

Future Here Now LinkedIn is an abbreviated version of the newsletter that Future Here Now subscribers receive every week. If you like this, you will find FHN very useful. Check out our subscriptions options here.