At the Edge of the Unknown

I’ve been sitting with the strange feeling of being both confident and afraid.

Both can appear in moments when you step into something new — where experience can’t quite protect you from the uncertainty ahead.

Two recent experiences brought this to life for me in very different ways.

The first was self-imposed: tiling our kitchen walls as part of a renovation project.

I really wanted to learn because I wanted to know how to tile, and there was something satisfying about the idea of doing it myself. However, I didn’t anticipate the level of fear that would surface once I began.

Even with years of practical experience and a fairly confident sense of how to approach most things, I found myself hesitating. I could feel that familiar resistance rising — a quiet, tightening voice that whispered “What if I mess this up?”

I watched tutorials, measured carefully, and prepared my tools. But none of that stopped the feeling that I was about to enter the unknown. Eventually, I just began with the fear ringing in my ear along with my carefully chosen playlist to accompany my foray into the tiling abyss.

The first few tiles were slow and tentative. I second-guessed every line. And then, gradually, something shifted. My hands began to trust what my mind could not.

It wasn’t ease exactly, but presence — a sense of being absorbed in the process, fully committed no matter what.

I can’t say I enjoyed tiling, at least not yet, but I did enjoy what it showed me. Fear doesn’t disappear when you act, but it does soften.

The second experience came not from my own choosing, but as an invitation.

Over a year ago, some friends from our village asked — rather seriously at the pub one evening — if I would photograph their son’s wedding. I said yes, touched and honoured, not really thinking much beyond the warmth of the moment.

Only later did the weight of that “yes” land.

Wedding photography isn’t my usual work. My portraiture tends to be quieter, slower, more intimate — time to connect, breathe, and listen for what wants to be seen. A wedding, by contrast, is full of motion, emotion, and expectation. There’s a sense of responsibility that comes with documenting one of the most meaningful days of someone’s life.

As the day approached, I could feel that familiar flicker of nervousness — the same one I’d met while tiling. This time, though, I recognised it.

It was the voice that says, “You don’t know enough.”

And yet, when I arrived, camera in hand, something else emerged – connection.

I loved interacting with everyone — the families, the couple, the children dancing, the small unscripted moments between the big ones. I was reminded that my way of seeing doesn’t need to change; it simply needed to meet a different kind of story.

Both experiences taught me something similar. Courage isn’t about eliminating fear, but about allowing it to accompany you — quietly, honestly — into what’s next. I was reminded that the edge of the unknown, uncomfortable as it is, remains sacred ground.

So I started.
I made mistakes.
I embraced them.
And somewhere between the tiles and the first dance, I found joy in the act of trying.

Courage, we know, is feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

But it’s also learning (and often relearning) to see fear not as an obstacle, but as a signal that we’re alive and our growth continues.