There is a particular kind of humiliation reserved for adults ... and it often arrives shortly after an iPhone update.
One moment you are a competent, functioning member of society. The next, you are staring blankly at your screen wondering where everything has gone while a teenager solves the problem in approximately four seconds and looks faintly puzzled/ashamed that you were struggling in the first place.
The same feeling can strike at a supermarket checkout with a new-fangled payment system, during the first weeks of a new job, after moving to a new country, or when starting a completely different career and discovering that decades of experience in one area count for remarkably little in another.
We can only imagine what Pope Leo XIV has had to navigate in his first year as pontiff, especially after receiving a name change following more than 70 years of being Robert! While we have to admit that becoming pope may be slightly more demanding than learning a new payment system, both involve the same uncomfortable realization: nobody begins as an expert.
For many adults, these moments are surprisingly uncomfortable because they force us back into a role we have spent years trying to leave behind: that of the beginner.
Children, by contrast, spend most of their lives in that position. They fall off bicycles, mispronounce words, ask baffling questions, and enthusiastically attempt things they have very little chance of mastering on the first try. Failure rarely troubles them because they assume learning is supposed to be messy. Whereas adults often view the situation rather differently.
When did we become so afraid of not knowing?
Somewhere along the way, many of us become strangely attached to competence. We enjoy being the person with the answer. We take comfort in familiarity. We like knowing how things work and where we stand. As a result, we can become surprisingly reluctant to place ourselves in situations where we might appear inexperienced.
Children assume they will learn. Adults often assume they should already know.
That small shift in mindset can make a remarkable difference. A five-year-old can spend an entire afternoon falling off a bicycle and consider the day a success. Many grown-ups become irritated if they cannot master a new app within three minutes.
The irony, of course, is that some of the most rewarding experiences in life require us to become beginners all over again. The first day in a new city, the first conversation in a foreign language, the decision to retrain for a different profession, or the challenge of learning a skill that feels completely beyond us all involve a degree of uncertainty that cannot be avoided.
Yet uncertainty is not always a sign that something has gone wrong. Quite often, it is evidence that we are growing. And perhaps this is one reason the Gospel places such value on becoming childlike. Not childish, but childlike.
The distinction matters. Childishness refuses to grow up. Childlikeness remains curious. It remains open to surprise. It is willing to ask questions, make mistakes, and admit that it does not have everything figured out.
When you look closely, many of the great figures of Scripture spent long periods feeling entirely out of their depth. Moses protested that he was the wrong person for the task before him. Peter repeatedly misunderstood what was happening around him. The disciples often seemed wonderfully confused by what Jesus was trying to teach them.
A saintly reset
Even the saints frequently found themselves starting over. St. Ignatius of Loyola was already an adult when an injury abruptly ended the life he had planned for himself. Forced to rethink his future entirely, he became a beginner again — eventually discovering a vocation that would change the Church.
That can be rather comforting. We tend to imagine wisdom, expertise, and holiness as destinations reached by people who possess unusual confidence. More often, they begin with someone willing to take the first uncertain step despite not knowing exactly how things will unfold.
Perhaps one of the secrets to staying young has very little to do with age at all. It may have more to do with remaining curious enough to occasionally risk looking foolish.
After all, every expert, every saint, every artist, every athlete, and every grandparent who eventually mastered FaceTime once found themselves in exactly the same position: wondering what they were doing, hoping nobody was watching, and learning as they went.
And perhaps that is the real gift of being a beginner. It reminds us that growth is still possible, that curiosity is still alive, and that there are always new things left to learn. Even if, occasionally, a teenager has to show us where the settings button has gone.
