I Am a Novice

The Japanese kangji (Chinese character) below is "sho shin" and it means "beginners mind." In The Power To Transform, Chris Majer writes about the "Learning Zone," the stair-step levels of competence that begin (odly enough <smile>) with Beginner and go up to > Novice > Competent > Proficient, Virtuoso and end with the top level of MASTER.

For most of my adult life I have been unwilling to be seen as a beginner at anything! THAT is a BIG one of the "enemies of learning." I am happy to report & declare that in terms of Transformation— yours, mine, anybody's— I am a novice. Very freeing. Feels good <smile>.

And... one of my favorite habits is a thing I call dicting around, which simply means going to the dictionary and exploring a word's meaning. Here's more about the word novice.

novice |ˈnävəs|

noun:

• a person new to or inexperienced in a field or situation: he was a complete novice in foreign affairs.

• a person who has entered a religious order and is under probation, before taking vows.

• an animal, esp. a racehorse, that has not yet won a major prize or reached a level of performance to qualify for important events.

ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French, from late Latin novicius, from novus ‘new.’

THE RIGHT WORD
All of these nouns are used to describe someone who has not yet acquired the skills and experience needed to qualify for a trade, a career, a profession, or a sphere of life.

Beginner is the most general and informal term, used to describe someone who has begun to acquire the necessary skills but has not yet mastered them (: violin lessons for beginners).

An apprentice is also a beginner, usually a young person, who is serving under a more experienced master or teacher to learn the skills of a trade or profession (: an apprentice to one of the great Renaissance painters). In a broad sense, apprentice refers to any beginner whose efforts are unpolished.

Novice implies that the person lacks training and experience (: a novice when it came to writing fiction), while neophyte is a less negative term, suggesting that the person is eagerly learning the ways, methods, or principles of something (: he was a neophyte at this type of sailing).

A probationer is a beginner who is undergoing a trial period, during which he or she must prove an aptitude for a certain type of work or life (: she was a lowly probationer, with no privileges or status).

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Heck, I'm even willing to be a probationer with this stuff.

Please, let me know what you think...

Thanks.
I appreciate you!

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