April 21, 2023
Dear Leland and Everett,
Last week was your spring break; we went to Washington D.C. to see the sights and to visit my aunt and uncle. We went to the Air and Space Museum (the one in Virginia near the airport, not the one on the Mall, which was under renovation), the Natural History Museum, the White House, all the monuments, the National Archives, and the zoo. I’ll be very curious to see how you remember the trip as adults. For your mom and I, this trip was pretty special.
Truth be told, your mom and I always enjoy vacations. Something about being at home serves as a constant reminder of all the things you need to do, all the errands you need to run, etc. Somehow leaving the house for a few days removes the temptation to get distracted, and facilitates presence. Your mom and I both found the trip relaxing, but also centering, as we left our stresses behind for a week.
Travel also encourages the “beginner’s mind”. When we experience something for the first time, we do so without judgment or expectations. We are curious, exploring the new place or activity, seeking discovery and play. In the current period marked by overstimulation and overwhelm, periods of beginner’s mind serve as periods of presence, of reset, of recovery.
I am often tempted to assume that moving to the place of my vacation will enable me to sustain the sense of presence that I experience on vacation. But the beginner’s mind helps us understand why this idea is folly: almost as soon as I move to a new place, it will cease to be new. I will cease to experience it playfully, and will look to settle into a routine; the newness will wear off.
To be clear, newness wearing off is not a bad thing, though it often seems like it. On most topics, when we move past the beginner’s mind we enter into a period of frustration: the excitement of newness has worn off, but we are bad at the new thing! Keeping with our travel/moving metaphor: when we move to a new city, we don’t know our way around. We don’t know the people, we don’t know the culture. We don’t know where to find anything. Once the excitement wears off (usually after a few days or weeks), the daunting challenge of learning the new city without getting overwhelmed sets in.
Fortunately, for most topics, we improve pretty quickly, and develop a sense of momentum and progress that sustains us in our more difficult periods. Continuing with the moving metaphor: eventually we start to feel settled. We make new friends, find the stores and restaurants that we like, figure out how to get around efficiently, and develop our daily routines. From here, our learning slows down dramatically, with both positive and negative effects: on the one hand, we feel safe, secure, and confident for the first time since we moved; on the other hand, we no longer feel the joy of newness, of learning, of growth. To be clear, our growth continues in the new city, but the pace is sufficiently slow as to be imperceptible and therefore unrewarding. And thus, we need to travel, to purposely explore again, in order to regain that sense of excitement, opportunity, and potential for growth.
I’ve kept to a traveling/moving metaphor, but the phases I’ve outlined apply to almost any aspect of life: making friends, learning new subjects in school, or starting new jobs, new companies, or new hobbies. In everything we do we cycle from the beginner’s mind to a stage of frustration but rapid learning to a stage of comfort and confidence but slow growth.
Of course, we don’t always complete all the phases. Sometimes we quit, and that’s okay too! Traveling on vacation is almost a preplanned form of quitting: we go to a new place long enough to immerse ourselves in the beginner’s mind, and then we leave before the frustration sets in. On other topics (perhaps that subject we don’t like at school, or that hobby that we just sorta drifted away from) we realize that the satisfaction of growth doesn’t offset the frustration of the struggle. Only on the rarest of topics are we content to keep struggling for growth after we stagnate; these are the areas where you can achieve mastery. I suspect some folks never truly master any subject. Age, wisdom, and perspective help, but ultimately mastery requires shifting your motivation from extrinsic rewards (typically money, status, or baubles of various sorts) to intrinsic reward (appreciating the struggle for the sake of the struggle, learning patience, cultivating curiosity in the face of familiarity, or pursuing the enormous satisfaction of achieving noticeable progress after a period of stagnation).
It might be worth taking stock in your life: of the areas where you allocate time (work, hobbies, relationships, or other free time), where are you a beginner, vs growing, vs achieving mastery? You will probably notice that most of your time is spent in areas of growth. I encourage you to think about where in your life you might want to achieve mastery. But I also encourage you to think about how you can continue to cultivate beginner’s mind in your life. As mentioned, for your mom and I this is primarily travel. But it can also include trying a new restaurant, visiting a new part of town or a new hiking trail, picking up a new hobby, joining a new club, or even making a new friend. What I’ve noticed is that experiencing the beginner’s mind in one area of your life helps you bring the sense of curiosity, wonder, and opportunity back into areas of your life that might otherwise feel stagnant. On the other hand, experiencing the beginner’s mind can also bring clarity into the areas of your life where you feel sufficiently stagnant that it’s time to make a change.
I often employ “the vacation test” to my life: if I am happy to return home after a vacation, it means that my life is pretty good. If I deeply resent ending my vacation and returning to my daily life, it means that I need to make changes. Fortunately, as much as I enjoyed D.C., spending extra time with you and your mom, and catching up with my aunt and uncle, I was ready to come home from this trip. That means we’re doing something right.
I love you,
Dad
Letters to Leland 