Beginner’s time
Beginner’s time
"Success ate my homework," and my free time, my curiosity, and maybe even my future.
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Dear Unlearners,
“Success is the enemy of learning. It can deprive you of the time and the incentive to start over. Beginner’s mind also needs beginner’s time.” - Naval
After I wrote about tradeoffs, I've been thinking a lot about the future of The Daily Unlearner. It has been a great time and I enjoy every moment. But I can't help wondering… what's the tradeoff of me spending hours writing every day?
There is so much I want to do with this publication but I am juggling a few things. I have a business to scale. A few more I am building from scratch. My knee needs rehabbing. I've got to brush up on my Mandarin for an upcoming trip. And I have a million things I need to learn.
Don't worry, The Daily Unlearner isn't going anywhere. But it's got me thinking.
I often find myself wishing to have the abundance of time I had in my early 20s. Those carefree days when I could goof around all day. One of the biggest regrets in life is that I didn't study harder when I was young. There's a part of me that secretly wishes I had a tiger parent pushing me to excel.
As time passes, we learn more lessons and slowly become more successful in different aspects of life. When we're successful, we get busy. Suddenly, there's no time to mess around, to try new things, to be bad at stuff. We're too caught up in maintaining our success, in doing what we're already good at.
As we get older and more successful, we start to miss that beginner's time. We miss the luxury of being able to suck at something new without worrying about the opportunity cost.
But maybe that's the real challenge of lifelong learning. Maybe true success is figuring out how to keep that beginner's time, even when you're not a beginner anymore. It's about making space to start over, to be bad at things, to learn without pressure.
It's not easy. But it's worth thinking about. Because if we let success kill our learning, what are we really succeeding at?
Until tomorrow,
Cammi
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I needed to read this.