Its time for a beginning and beginnings are unique—there is only ever one of them. You can never undo a beginning—sure, I can go back and edit this post, but that’s cheating. And besides, a beginning is not about itself, but where it sends you. A good beginning propels you forward giving energy and direction, whatever the undertaking. And changing the beginning only hides the evidence—the opportunity for a good start having already been lost. No, beginnings are important not for their substance, but for how they pave the road ahead.

Beginnings are also awkward. When beginning, your energy and direction can be misplaced making it difficult to steer your task wherever it needs to go. Knowing this can make each new start scary because getting it wrong can make your task that much more difficult. Shortly, you will be experienced, if not an expert, able to second-guess your beginning, and knowing dozens of ways you might have done better. But now you are a beginner; I am a beginner.

Your road ahead might be long and intimidating, but in some ways it is easier to be a beginner and not know what it is you are getting in to. I am sure a lot of great successes would have never happened if we all knew beforehand how much effort it takes to finally succeed. Naivety and inexperience can be a powerful force letting people succeed because they were too dumb to know when to give up.

So here I am at the beginning, a little excited and even more curious about what lies ahead. But also a little worried and apprehensive about starting off wrong.

But, there’s no real need for concern. No one remembers where you start—it’s where you end up.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.