Your Unique Beginner’s Mind

A week ago I turned a year older. I don’t think I’m the only one who participates in some heavy reflection before a number-associated identity shift. I’m well into my early thirties and it’s all good. Yes, I have a bag of whatifs and prollyshouldnthavedonethats and whatnexts and I’m ok because I recognize I’m a work in progress. As I get older, I am (thankfully) willing to work on myself more and that includes regularly checking in on my mindset. What I mean is that I prefer to approach each new day with the curiosity and self-forgiveness of a beginner. With eagerness. With my cynicism repressed. Having spent nearly a decade in New York City, the latter is not always an easy feat.

The Japanese have the phrase “shoshin” which means “beginner’s mind”. To practice Zen, the goal is to maintain this beginner’s mind (aka an open mind) and to free yourself of preconceptions. There is an inherent enthusiasm and joy when we approach life like this. To enter into each new experience as a beginner often means the process is more fun and leads to a stronger commitment and greater success.

In my pre-birthday contemplation I wondered about a time in my life when I naturally deployed this “beginner’s mind”, when I was taking each moment as it unfolded, in wonder. The images flashed in my mind almost immediately. I knew the time and place. It was summer camp back home in Bermuda. When I was 10.

I couldn’t wait to get to this particular camp every day. I had no idea what to expect, every day was different and every day was full of new feelings. I had my best friend by my side and an invitation to arrive each morning with my creativity abuzz. These memories are some of my most potent because they were so formative. I was literally deciding who I wanted to be when I showed up each day because at that age I didn’t really know that I could be something other than an extension of my friends and family, that I could really be my own person. Perhaps I was a late bloomer. I think I always have been. We swam, we painted, we played board games and something called Frisbee Golf and I developed a very intense crush (one that would last a decade) on a boy who didn’t know my name. There was a manmade tarp slip-n-slide on a hill powered by a hose and Palmolive dishsoap that will forever mean I feel joyful when I use that soap. There was just so much power in my happiness and hopefulness that it saddens me to think that was ever subdued.

But this is what happens. We get older and we forget that it’s ok to approach life like this. Sure, life isn’t finger painting and slip-n-slides but there are a heck of a lot of other silly, wonderful moments available to us if we want them. I know life will be better if I go at it with “Summer of ’94 mind” so that is what I strive to do as I slip on this new age. Feel free to let me know how it looks.

When did you last feel hopeful, joyful and excited all at once? Can you apply that to the new days that unfold for you? Can you have fun with it and gift yourself with a name for this mindset? (Eg. Middle-School Musical Mind, First Semester of College Mind, That Time I Was In A Band Mind or simply, Vacation Mind.)

Whatever it is, embody it and carry it with you. Don’t leave that beauty behind. You likely learned something from that experience and you’ve got plenty more to go.