Firsts

This is my first entry into the Journals community on Vocal. I celebrate it.

When people think of the concept of firsts, it’s easy to recall certain obvious ones: first tooth, first words, first date, first sexual experience, first job.

These are all important and worthy of the crazy memory space we call our brains, yet I dare here to proclaim that we are constantly experiencing firsts until the day we die, which even includes the act of death itself.

Our brains are remarkable organs, in that when we can set logical precedents for ourselves, we are—at first consciously and eventually subconsciously—building foundations upon which our entire lives as we know them sit.

Do you take the time and effort to recognize and celebrate your less obvious firsts? Even if it doesn’t seem like you should, there is a silver lining to everything.

At the time of this writing, for instance, I have maxed out a credit card, the first such limit hit in my life, yet I choose to look at it as a valuable lesson, one where I will face the consequences and make smarter financial decisions in the future. That future potential is worth celebrating, even today.

On a more granular level, let’s take a moment to think about how each of us as unique human beings speaks. I’d be willing to bet that, on the level of physical analysis of sound waves, if you said any one phrase twice in a row, you wouldn’t be saying it truly identically each time. The infinitesimal variances in how we breathe and move our mouths, tongues and lips would see to that, even if each utterance sounds “close enough” to the same.

Our brains can be lazy like that, when it comes to processing sensory input in any given moment. But technically, you are experiencing a first every time you open your mouth.

A recording can even play back that utterance and we hear our own voices differently that way than when we actually speak.

It’s like the entire universe has been designed to never duplicate a thing! Isn’t that a uniquely beautiful realization?

Odds are too, that each new day at your job brings you at least one new thing, no matter how monotonous you regard your duties as being. The trick is, we must pay attention in order to appreciate this kind of first: the next customer has a distinctly Russian accent, your co-worker compliments you on the tie you’re wearing, the sales meeting gets interrupted when the boss spills coffee in his lap.

You may ask: why do these things matter that much?

We are wired to both remember and act upon firsts. Traveling out of state for the first time, if pleasant and invigorating, might spark a typical citizen to visit more states or even fly to England or India. On the converse side of this phenomenon, I have a friend who tried psychotherapy exactly once, and hasn’t been back since.

Firsts represent so very much in terms of a few basic but sometimes difficult life dynamics: courage, faith and the ability and willingness to observe change, rolling with the punches, as it were.

Everyone deserves to be commended for trying something new, or something so old that it is new again. Re-entering the dating scene after a tough breakup is a first that’s easy to see as not being one. But, after all, each time you’re trying out someONE new, an effort which fear or low self-esteem can short-circuit in an instant.

And I suppose that’s why I write about firsts from a perspective of growth: if we recognize in ourselves their infinite nature and that no two experiences will ever be exactly alike, we unlock the infinite potential within ourselves and smack fear in the face, showing it who’s boss.

Faith is not quite the same as courage, and is easy to lose when we feel trodden upon by observable, repeated patterns. But when we lose faith and don’t allow ourselves the glorious celebration of firsts, it’s really not just because we expect the same failure over and over again. It’s because we’ve ceded control in a way that prevents learning and change. We can MAKE each day be a new and refreshing experience if we just believe that the details WILL back that expectation up.

Firsts are also not quite the same as milestones. But they are achievements. They just tend to feel smaller than milestones because of less lead-up and more experimentation. Take two college prospects from two different economically challenged families. Say that in each case, that kid is achieving a first in their respective families by going to college at all.

Which one is going to graduate with pride, in fewer semesters with higher GPA and a prestigious job awaiting him or her, as compared to a kid who is going to school simply to get away from an abusive family situation? The one who appreciates and celebrates their own efforts in just showing up for class, that’s who, because regardless of intelligence, success is built on that celebratory attitude, and each unique day, for that person, builds upon the ones prior.

My best friend from high school has got to have been the first and only in his class to have worked as a professional actor, prison chaplain, and psychiatrist, then gotten married and had a daughter, all before age 45, yet he in my opinion has been too humble about these achievements. What does humility really gather us in this life? It mucks us all together into one big mess of humanity, where the color and light radiating from each of our personalities and hearts gets dulled, if you ask me.

Then, finally, there is the topic of getting started, and of first steps in all kinds of valuable contexts.

It’s said that getting started is the hardest part. Just know that when you pick up that calligraphy pen, that when you put on that choir robe, or when you ask that cutie out that you’ve been nervous to even approach, you have already taken a huge leap of faith and changed yourself for the better from the inside out, even before the first ink stroke is laid, the first notes are sung, or you open your car door to take your crush to the movies.

Such a revelatory attitude about firsts has helped me take greater joy in the activities that follow the personal choice. I choose to be bold, to see life unfold in a whole new light, to truly know that tomorrow will not only be the first Valentine’s Day, 2024 in the history of mankind, but it will also be the only one, when you consider the year and the undeniable fact that in 2025 each and every one of us will be gloriously different than we are now.

Seize the day. God bless.