On Beginning

I sit down to write, and the words plague me.

Not the beautiful, ethereal words that maneuver themselves into sentences that convey some aspect of the human experience. Not the words that make meaning out of suffering, that create space for the mysteries of existence.

I’m talking about the insecure words. The fear words. The words that come with beginning something.

I’ve begun many things in my life. Some things didn’t last: a short-lived hobby of card shuffling (I had just watched Now You See Me). A blog (I knew I needed to write, but I guess I wasn’t ready to). A video series on Instagram about being human (I realized I didn’t want to be an “Instagram therapist”). Some things did last: Irish dancing (10+ years, and an ongoing achilles injury to boot). Graduate school (hello, masters degree). Therapy (years of it, and now I provide it to others).

Whether things lasted, or were short-lived, the beginning experience was similar: a war with my all-or-nothing failure mindset that says if I don’t try, then I won’t fail, and that sounds pretty darn good. Worries about whether I have the time, financial resources, emotional resources, and skills to do the new thing well. Insecurity that I should stay small, hide in the background, and take up as little space as possible. Wonderings if people will think I’m trying to be a [insert thing here].

(Where did we get this idea that trying to be something was shameful anyway? I’ll file this under: ideas for future writings.)

Regardless, here I am, beginning this, The Human Space, and wandering that similar terrain of insecurity. It’s a well-worn path.

Will I be consistent? Will anyone read this? What if too many people read this and it grows too big? What if people find me annoying? What if, what if, what if.

But what if I simply start? Isn’t being human mostly about beginning, failing, and beginning again? 

Perhaps, today, this is your invitation to begin. To begin again, that thing you felt drawn towards. To begin for the first time, that thing you’ve always wanted to do.

As John O’ Donohue says, “Sometimes, the greatest challenge is to actually begin.”

Bold, but trembling, let us be a people who begin.