Beginnings We Choose
It All Begins Here
by Alice Gaddi Roselo
A gentle checklist for moving forward in life and in story
“Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.” - Alan Cohen
As another year opens, many of us feel the quiet pull of beginnings. Not the loud, dramatic kind (with drumrolls and with fireworks) but the kind that arrive softly, asking only for honesty and courage. In our later years, these quiet tugs at the heart are often the most profound.
As a Guided Autobiography (GAB) instructor and a fellow traveler in later life, I have learned this: beginnings are rarely about age or timing; they are about choice. Here is my personal list: part reflection, part resolution, part nudge, all with the goal to help us and our students begin again, both in life and in writing.
1. Begin Where You Are (Not Where You Think You Should Be)
You don’t need a clean slate, perfect health, or a quiet house to begin. You only need the willingness to start from here. In GAB, the most powerful stories often emerge from messy, unfinished places.
2. Choose Progress Over Perfection
Waiting to “write it better later” often means not writing at all. The same is true in life. Begin imperfectly. You can always revise a paragraph, but you cannot revise a blank page.
3. Begin with One Story, Not Your Whole Life
Your life is vast. Don’t try to capture it all at once. Choose one memory, one moment, one turning point. Beginnings grow when they are small and specific. Like a single seed in a vast garden, one story is enough to start.
4. Start with What Has Been Waiting
Is there a story you’ve postponed for years? A chapter you avoided because it still feels tender? Often, the stories we delay are the ones asking most urgently to be told.
5. Give Yourself Permission to Change the Narrative
Beginning again does not erase the past. It reframes it. In writing and in life, you are allowed to see old events with new eyes and to tell the story differently, now. This is the grace we afford ourselves as we grow older.
6. Let Writing Be an Act of Care, Not Performance
We are not writing to impress. We are writing to understand, to heal, to witness. Let your beginning be quiet and mellow. Let it be kind to the writer you are today.
7. Begin Even If No One Is Watching
Some beginnings are private. A notebook no one else sees. A story written only for yourself. These quiet starts often lead to the deepest transformations.
8. Remember That Teaching Is Also a Beginning
For GAB instructors, every circle, group, or class we facilitate is a new beginning for our students and for ourselves. Each time we listen deeply, we begin again as learners, just like a teacher and a student walk through the door together.
9. Trust That Momentum Comes After the First Step
Clarity follows action, not the other way around. Write the first sentence. Ask the first question. The path often reveals itself only after we begin walking.
10. Choose to Begin Again and Again
Beginnings are not one-time events. They are practices. Each new year, each new story, each new session invites us to begin once more with wisdom earned and hope intact.
As we step into this new year, may we remember: we do not begin because everything is ready; we begin so that something new can be born. May this GAB Gazette be your gentle invitation to start where you are. Whether you are an instructor opening a new circle or a student holding a pen for the first time, your beginning doesn't need to be loud; it only needs to be honest. Trust that the path will reveal itself once you take that first step. In life, in writing, and in the stories we help others tell, may we choose our beginnings bravely, gently, now.