A Dilettante

I sometimes feel like I am a dilettante when I attend classes. While I am able to cultivate a broad and varied interest in different subject matters, there is something in me that doesn't quite feel as professional as those around me. It is as though I am a kind of child who is playing around with different ideas to determine which ones work and which don't work so well.
   I don't think it's always a good idea to try to push oneself into a professional stance. In fact, there are times when I believe that people fluctuate between feeling confident in their studies and feeling only as though they are beginners. If I learn to relax into the notion of just experimenting and scoping a subject matter, I am more likely to feel engaged in a sincere way. This stance is not a slackness, but rather an attention that comes from giving myself permission to be at the level I am right now, while knowing that there are always many miles of terrain to go.
   The alternative way of engaging is the tendency to try to keep up with others out of an effort to 'appear' just as professional as they are. But this all too often leads to a kind of conforming for conformity's sake, without a sincere love for the subject. I am suggesting to stay in a playful and experiment stance when one is not sure how to proceed.