New Year, New Habits

Or something like that. Don’t judge me if they don’t come to fruition.

“To thrive, to express ourselves…we have to know ourselves.” - Ethan Hawke

Learning new things is hard.

When we’re kids, all we’re doing is learning. Learning about the world we live in, how people talk and interact, learning who we are as people and how we fit into this whole thing, learning how to read and write and do math and create art. But once we’re adults, and we’ve learned all those basic things, should we even keep pushing ourselves to learn further?

To me, the obvious answer is: yes.

But that doesn’t make it easy.

I’m someone who was lucky and unfortunate enough to pick things up quickly as a child. I was smart, I could figure things out, and my parents pushed me to try to figure things out on my own first before asking for help. This has, in some ways, helped me a lot as an adult as I feel like I can figure things out independently fairly easily. However, it has also made me fearful of asking for help and terrified of what will happen if I don’t know something or can’t figure it out right away. Which ends up making learning new things harder.

Because of this, I struggle with the thought that if I am not immediately good at something, then I shouldn’t be doing it at all.

But that’s not how life works.

Obviously, I don’t want it to be hard. I want to learn. I want to grow. I have never been a good painter or visual artist. I have many years of dance lessons under my belt, but none of them ballet. I studied music for years, but never piano. I can write prose for days but poetry? Forget it.

But I want to know those things. I want to learn how to do them. I don’t want to end up 30 years from now with the thought of, “I could have…”

So, for this year, I have a daily mantra. Or rather I’m trying for a daily mantra. It’s happened once, but I’m still thinking about it so I think that counts?

I am capable of learning.

I am worthy of knowledge.

I am open to new possibilities.