We Clap Our Hands too Early

The concept of firsts is a standard that thrills us as humans. Being the first at anything can etch your name into the history books forever. When a new born is brought to the earth we await for all their firsts so much so that we give them a slap on the bum if they don’t give us their first cry within the first seconds of them being on this earth, not out of malice; just to confirm they are alive and breathing as they should. So, it’s not really strange. Firsts are very memorable, almost sacred. In religion, entire rites of passage are built around them: a first communion, a first service, a first prayer. These moments are defined so clearly that they feel like the pinnacle of existence on this giant floating rock.

Over the years, we have become so advanced that sometimes we tend to never see how far we are getting and what it means for the spaces that we inhabit. Because of this wiring, we want sometimes to always be first, never actually realizing how little to no effort it might take to get there, considering how easy it is to acquire knowledge and apply it in this new era of tech and intelligence.

Programming our minds to seek approval is where we get it all wrong. We do this not only to ourselves but also to others, especially children. As soon as a baby takes her first step, we cheer and clap. The gesture is loving, but it can overstimulate to the point where the child stops doing what she was naturally exploring. Childhood is the most creative period of our lives, when the mind is blank yet boundless. Too often, that capability is capped by premature applause, by celebration that interrupts expression.

It’s like we grow up as comedians whose jokes get laughed at before we finish telling them. Not because everyone knows what’s coming next, but because they assume we are done before we actually are. Imagine the number of babies who had 2 words to say but couldn’t because everyone celebrated once they said their first word. Some of them probably never said that second word, because whenever visitors came we always asked for that one word we heard for the first time and celebrated every time the baby could say it back to us without slipping. While it is valuable and very warming that she said her first word, have you ever thought of how much she could say if we just let her finish?

Clapping our hands too early follows us into adulthood. We grow up with defined notions of when people are supposed to clap hands for us, so we only challenge ourselves to rise to that occasion, and leave it there. We perform just enough to be the best in class, sport, music, film, or any other discipline, whether we choose it or somebody else does for us. That occasion means so much to us because that’s when the stamp of approval comes in, the crowd claps for us. And sometimes, we just cross the bar, so we get a standing ovation. Unfortunately, when the crowd claps their hands should be a signal that we have only gone to a point where people see what they have seen before. Being the best means the bar has been set there. We didn’t evolve by just getting up to the bar, we evolved by shattering it.

The world does not belong to people who are the best. It belongs to the ones who ask themselves “What am I capable of?”. This question unlocks a new phase that’s beyond the best, being good or performing at just acceptable standards. Because let’s be honest, when you get to be the best at something and you wire yourself to just be the best, at some point, I’ll call it that clapping hands point, becomes your ceiling. It feels enough. It stops us from stretching. The capability question shatters any known standards and keeps you chasing what you can be even when it looks like it’s more than enough for the world, and that’s when you change the world. When your core changes and starts shifting beyond predefined capabilities, you make yourself an example of the people we all admire for tremendous achievements in this world.

We are wired by questions we ask ourselves, because when we do ask ourselves, our subconscious answers those questions, whether we actually let out the answers is what the conscious mind is for. The key then to wiring ourselves to be made for more is asking questions that challenge us to build ourselves to be more. What are you capable of? Shattering the truth? Redefining what it means to be a person of your kind in the spaces you find yourself in? Just being “the best”? What are you capable of?

Clapping our hands is not the problem. We can be impressed. When we clap our hands is critical. There are child-minded people still asking themselves what they are capable of. Some already aren’t. Let’s just ensure we clap our hands when they are actually done. Isaac Newton might’ve been stopped from developing everything he knew about gravity had people clapped their hands at the fact that he had questioned how the apple fell from the tree. But maybe because no one did clap their hands, or no one knew, he got the chance to explore what he was capable of to its depths and gave us the foundation to multiple key elements in the study of the universe.

If you are asking yourself the question “What am I capable of?,” take the applause as a reminder that you are doing what’s been done before. A standing ovation signals mastery by the world’s standards, but your real work begins after the noise fades.  What you are capable of becomes a dive into the unknown, but that’s where you want to be. The unknown is where progress lives, and it is there that your name becomes something to honor.

The journey beyond excellence isn’t about reaching predefined destinations, but about constantly expanding the boundaries of possibility. When we stop at the sound of applause, we forfeit the unexplored territories of our potential. True mastery lies not in meeting expectations but in transcending them, in asking “what more?” when others say “enough.”

Perhaps our greatest achievement isn’t the standing ovation but what we dare to create in the silence that follows when the crowd has seated, the lights have dimmed, and we’re left alone with our capability question burning brighter than before. In that sacred space beyond recognition, beyond validation, we find not just innovation but transformation of ourselves and, consequently, of our world.

The most profound human contributions weren’t created by those who stopped at applause, but by those who saw applause as merely a checkpoint on an endless road. So let us celebrate achievement, yes but let us be careful not to mistake the milestone for the journey’s end. Our greatest capabilities often lie just beyond the moment when everyone else believes we’ve already arrived.