You Always Start at Zero

Most people choose to skip the 101 course; that which embodies the notion of a beginning. The simplicity and innocence of concepts learned in the foremost years of an individual’s education have the potential to lay the path down for complex thinking thereafter.

Please, don’t cheat time.

Learn with conviction. Do not be afraid of purpose. Understand that mastery can only be born out of curious and humble beginnings. By going through the endeavour of learning and thought-crafting, we have the capacity of creating and moulding ourselves.

In the poem The Speed of Darkness, Muriel Rukesyer wisely says, “The universe is made of stories, Not of atoms.” She’s right, our learning doesn’t only shape ourselves; it shapes society. It allows us to place a thread in the interwoven series of stories we call history.

I ask you, I challenge you: Stay humble. Confidently say “I don’t know” and it will only make you a more noble-minded individual. Be proud of opening that dusty encyclopedia and learning from the masters that came before you. A time soon will come for you to write a new chapter in society’s endless story.

How do you begin? Well, that’s the easy part.

Start at zero.