Yesterday I spent almost an hour making a set of icons — four tiny drawings that any seasoned designer could finish in fifteen minutes.
But when the last icon clicked into place, when the colors sat just right and the lines came out cleaner than I expected — I sat very still, stared at the screen, and had to actively stop myself from cheering out loud.
The feeling was a little goofy. But it was real. Like I'd just invented the lightbulb.
To a professional, my icons would probably earn a polite "not bad." But to me, they represented an entire evening of fumbling: try, delete, try again, hunt through tutorials, ask the silliest questions — why does this border-radius not look round? Is this font sans-serif or am I wrong? — until something finally clicked that I actually liked.
That thrill, I'm convinced, belongs only to beginners. And I want to hold onto it for as long as I can.
The trap of "be good immediately"
There's a quiet but heavy pressure most young people carry: the pressure to become proficient as fast as possible.
I was caught in it too. I'd open a design app for the first time and before doing anything, I'd be comparing myself to jaw-dropping portfolios on Behance. I'd be halfway through a tutorial and already thinking "people my age have made a hundred things by now." That mindset made me study without actually learning, sit at my desk while my mind was somewhere else entirely.
Then I noticed something: the most beautiful phase of any skill is when you know nothing about it.
Sounds strange, right? But think about it.
When you know nothing, you have no preconceptions. No "correct" way you're forced to follow. No tedium of repetition. Everything is fresh. An accidental color combination looks wonderfully odd. An off-grid layout creates an unexpected effect. You're free to try anything — not because you don't know the rules, but because you don't know them yet.
This is the beginner's mind. In Zen Buddhism, Suzuki Roshi wrote: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few." I read that line once, then had to read it again. Because it felt too true.
Experts sometimes have to work hard to reclaim that uncluttered way of seeing. Me? I have it naturally, for free, right now.
Celebrating my own slowness
I'm not the kind of person who picks things up quickly. Where someone else watches a tutorial once and gets it, I usually need to watch three times — pausing, asking "but why does it work that way?", opening extra tabs, circling back.
I used to scold myself for this. Now I think it's actually kind of great.
When I go slowly, I notice things fast-movers walk right past. I catch why one button looks "more professional" than another just because the padding is slightly different. I notice that one app's click sound feels better than another's. I wonder why this gray looks warmer than that gray, and I go find out — oh, warm gray and cool gray have different undertones.
Small things. But those small things are exactly what builds a sensitive design eye — and I have them because I'm willing to go slowly, because I didn't rush for the finish line.
Honestly, I've started celebrating my own slowness in the most literal sense. Not because I want to glorify procrastination, but because I've learned: learning isn't a race. There's no prize for understanding fastest. The only prize is genuinely understanding — in a way you discovered for yourself.
Every time I wrestle with a concept and finally get it, that "oh, I see it now" feeling is so much richer than copying a tutorial and checking off a task. That, I think, is what learning is actually supposed to feel like.
Stay curious. Stay gloriously clueless.
If you're at the start of any journey — UX/UI, code, photography, ceramics, writing, anything — and you're feeling too slow, too inexperienced, too "behind everyone else":
Take a breath.
You have something people further along have lost. Curiosity unencumbered by habit. The sense that anything could be magic. The rare privilege of asking the world's silliest questions without worrying about looking unprofessional.
Go ahead and ask the silly questions. "Why is this white and not cream?" or "What's the difference between padding and margin — in terms of, like, feeling?" Those questions aren't silly. They're the mark of someone who's actually paying attention.
One day you'll have enough experience that the basics feel obvious. And you'll have to work hard to see them clearly again.
Don't rush toward that day. Stay excited. Stay wonderfully unfinished. Enjoy the privilege of being a beginner for a little while longer.
You're in the most beautiful part of the journey. Don't skip it just to reach the destination sooner.
What are you learning right now? And what excites you most about not knowing yet?
I'd genuinely love to hear — nothing is more contagious than a beginner's enthusiasm.