To Create the Future You Need a Beginner’s Mind
Experts have very few options
The Japanese have a word for “beginner’s mind” — Shoshin. Even advanced martial arts students are encouraged to have shoshin. Openness, eagerness, and a lack of preconceptions. Experts tend to get their ass kicked.
For beginners, a would-be ass-kicking is merely a chance to learn.
Our ego always wants to be an expert. An expert is safe. An expert is finished. If your life is already everything you dreamed it to be — congratulations, you’re an expert. For the rest of us — we are forever beginners.
1) Beginners Replace Fear With Curiosity
Roland Griffiths — a pioneer in the modern world of psychedelic research — gives his patients some good advice. When you’re tripping on 5 grams of mushrooms and you see a demonic figure, approach it with curiosity. The hair on the back of your neck may be standing on end — but ask it what it needs to teach you.
When you’re curious about the demon, it begins to change. When you run from the demon, you can spend the entire 8-hour trip fleeing from the same creature. What you run from never changes. What you look at morphs before your eyes.
