Welcome to my new year’s resolution. Yes, most people do that on January 1, but you may know this by now, I’m not most people. Why can’t I start a year-long adventure on November 13? Let’s start this journey together.

My goal until November 12, 2015 is to share 1 thing I learn each day. I’ll do my best not to repeat, but if I fail to learn something right the first time, I may just have to learn it again. I can’t promise that every day’s lesson will be deep and profound, but some may just blow you away. Stick around ’til day #365 and find out.

Day #1: Today’s life lesson was one hopefully most of you learned in school: If you don’t understand something, ask, because you’re probably not the only one. As I was editing a news article there was one section I had to re-read several times before it made sense to me. I was feeling courageous and mentioned this fact to the journalist. Instead of laughing at me for being slow to understand (a fear at the time, but looking back was rather unlikely), he thanked me and started re-writing. Because, as he so eloquently put it, if it didn’t make sense to me, it probably wouldn’t make sense to other readers.

So remember, in those moments you feel a little bit less than brilliant and need something spelled out a little better, chances are someone else will need clarification as well, so go ahead and ask! It’s a selfless move really, being the spokesperson for those who “don’t quite get it yet.” Now if I could just go back and explain to my 17 year-old self this lesson during calculus class…