Always An Amateur

What do you think of when I say the word amateur? There are a lot of connotations around the word. And actually, if you look up quotes about the word amateur, most of them are not positive. Most of them are critical.
And usually amateur is contrasted against professional. But if you're anything like me, you may have a little bit of a perfectionist in you. And we really want to be professional. We really want to be perfect. We really want to do everything right. Sometimes, though, it really is better to just be an amateur. An amateur is generally someone we associate with being new on the journey.
And let's be honest, if you're going to take any journey at all, you're going to have to be new on it in the beginning. And if you're not willing to be new on a journey, you will never go anywhere you haven't already been. And that's, to me, a really intimidating thought. I want to go new places, but in order to do that, I have to be humble and recognize that I can't start off at the top.
I'm not beginning the game at level ten, so I have to start as an amateur. And sometimes it's hard to stomach that, especially if you've been doing this very long. Maybe you've had some prestige, maybe you've had some success, and you feel like, Man, I somehow have hit the brakes. I'm going backwards. I'm now in some new endeavor and I just feel behind the eight ball all the time.
And like, I'm no longer the biggest fish in the pond. Let me just tell you that it is a joy if you can embrace the idea of being in that phase of being amateur, because in order to keep growing in your life, you're going to have to be an amateur over and over again. So I want to suggest this to you.