Beginnings

Reflections on starting something new

Note: I wrote this back in 2025, but finally got around to posting it now.

Over the past year, I’ve experienced a lot of firsts: I graduated college, started my first job, began renting my first apartment with a new roommate, joined random classes around the city, etc. More so than any other time of my life, this has been a season of beginnings.

That has got me reflecting a lot on what it’s like to start something new.

When I first moved to NYC, my roommate and I, almost spontaneously, decided to sign up for acting classes. Neither of us had done anything like it before, but we decided to give it a go. There’s something about undergoing a big change, a major life shift, where anything seems possible. Having just graduated and moved back to the city, I was free of any long-standing routines and habits that otherwise would have tied my days down. In fact, I was a bit scared of getting bogged down into a dull routine by my job. These classes were a way for me to push myself outside of my comfort zone, try something I never would have tried naturally, meet new people in the city, and break up the monotony of my work-centered days.

The first day of those acting classes stuck out a lot to me. Filtering into a strange studio filled with strange faces in a strange building not far from Times Square filled, I remember feeling nervous, excited, and a bit unsure of myself. Our teacher said we were going to kick off the class with some icebreakers, and I was at once dreading it and eager to start. Most people seemed to feel similarly, simultaneously a bit on edge and a bit thrilled. As we walked through icebreakers, games where we had to remember each of our names, or pair off in partners and learn interesting facts about each other, I kind of got the feeling that the room was filled with mirrors, and that everyone was watching themselves. That’s the vibe that people gave off. They all talked and gestured with an extra oomph of charisma and energy. It filled the room with a kind of electricity, a kind of exhilaration.

During that class, I was face to face with a thrill that I’ve felt many times since then. There is a certain enthusiasm that we encounter when we start something new. There is an air of eagerness, of expectations waiting to be fulfilled or let down, and an energy that spreads to everyone. Almost everyone is wide-eyed, a bit on edge, a bit nervous, a bit thrilled. Where does this enthusiasm come from? Definitely, from the novelty of meeting new people in an unfamiliar place. But what about novelty gets us so excited? And why does that energy fade over time? I want to argue that the enthusiasm associated from beginnings comes from something deeper, from the expectations we have of ourselves.

Every beginning represents a moment where we invent ourselves. All of us, in some form or the other, have a sense of the kind of person we want to be. A rough vision of how we want our life to go, of the kind of relationships we want to carry, of the kinds of problems we want to work on. Usually, we have settled into a lifestyle, a day-to-day routine. We become comfortable with a certain way of living. We wake up every morning, go to work, meet our friends, call our parents, get frustrated, get bored. Often, though, there is a mismatch, however slight, between what we are doing and we want to do. Between who we are and who we want to be.

We can view our lives as paths taken across a field of possibilities. Everyday, we are moving forward. Often, we move without much thought, following what we are used to, with the same gait that we have been for a while, eyes fixed on the ground before us. When we start something new, though, we take a step towards a set light in the distance, the goal post of who we want to be. We look at the horizon of possibility, of things that aren’t yet, of things that we could do. We choose one possibility, and make it real.

That sensation is most felt in a room full of strangers starting something new together. We momentarily suspend who we were. The rush of possibility hits us. How will we represent ourselves to these new people? That naturally leads to the question, What kind of person do I want to be? In being there, doing something new with new people, we are actively in the process of answering that question.

To put it another way, the beginning of something new represents a shift from a passive to an active life. Instead of following the contours of our environment, of what we have been doing for years, of what’s expected of us, we look up, evaluate where we want to go, and take a definitive step. We understand that we are not trapped by our past, that every day we can reinvent ourselves. We forge ourselves into the kind of person we want to be.

Naturally, the enthusiasm fades a bit over time. We fall back into a routine. We forget where we are going and why. But it doesn’t need to stay that way. We can once again lift our eyes up, chart a new path, and begin once more.

And that is what is so exhilarating about beginnings: the suspension of who we were and the becoming of who we will be.