(Small Moments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z1pi1boiqo&noredirect=1)
There's just nothing like it. Time and time again it proves to be invaluable, often more so than anything else. Someone tells you all about a big event in great detail...but you still can't fully comprehend what happened. You look at a picture of a huge moment in time...but you still don't feel the strong emotional attachment. You've read all about it in books...but you still don't have the memories and knowledge that you would have, had you actually been there. What's the missing link that pulls everything together, from our personal lives to our professional, from our friendships to our enemies, and even our huge failures to our greatest triumphs? Experience.
One of the biggest ways that experience makes itself known and needed is when you're applying for a job. You can read all kinds of job descriptions and apply all you want, but more often than not, if you don't meet the required experience level that those hiring are looking for, you won't even get a call. College degrees are great, even more so with advanced degrees in specialized fields, but if you have eight years of education while someone else has eight years of direct experience, guess who looks more valuable to employers? The reason for this is that experience simply can't be beaten. When you are working in a position, really living it day in and day out, you get the full learning that touches on every sense and stimulates your mind in a way that lectures and textbooks can't. So many things that happen on the job are things that are unforeseen and the reactions to these events all depend on the situation and the human dynamics happening at the time. In my recent position I learned more in the four months that I was there than I did from an entire year of college education. The pace and relevance of everything I learned was incredible. Most employers today need their employees to be up to date and on top of everything that's going on in their industry and the greatest way to do this is by living what's happening on a daily basis.
Experience doesn't stop in the workplace however and it's not just a check mark on a job application. The greatest experiences we have are in our personal lives. Whether you're experiencing ecstasy or symptoms of depression, everyone experiences life differently at different times and our experiences are constantly changing. One of the most notable examples of how experience makes a difference is when someone tells you about a great event or a great trip they had. You can see the pictures, hear the stories, watch the videos, and even see the expressions on the faces of those who were there, but you just can't fully grasp and understand it fully unless you experience it for yourself. I believe one of the major reasons for this is because we all take things in and interpret them differently. If you're someone who loves the beach and you took me with you on a beach vacation, we would probably have a different experience and remember it differently. You would probably have a great time and feel relaxed while I would wonder what we were doing there and ask when the real fun starts. Either way, we would still understand what happened better and feel more emotion associated with the trip than someone we shared stories with when we got back. The experience, good or bad, still has more impact than no experience at all.
I believe the deepest type of experience we can have though is the experience we have in relating to other people. Entire relationships, dreams, and even lives are built off of our interactions with others and the overall experience we have with them. It's said that first impressions are the most important but I believe it's also important to look beyond this and really get to know someone before casting any judgement or feeling like you understand them. The experiences you have with another person are the building blocks in any relationship, be it friendship or a romantic one. You learn so much through spending time with another person that you could never understand through that person being described. With this, I believe it's also important to experience what another person is like in a variety of settings. If you only spend time with a person when they're in a happy mood or at a party like event, you don't really get the full picture. It takes the experience of interacting with someone through their triumphs and trials, being able to see them struggle and overcome, in order to really learn who they are. One of the stories my dad has told me about when he was dating my mom was that he spent some time working with her hand in hand on different projects so that he could learn what it was like to be around her in a more typical day kind of setting. If you think you know someone without having experienced at least a sample of what life has to offer with them, you've missed an important teaching lesson.
Overall, I believe that experience is not just a teacher but the core of life itself. Life is worth living because of the wide variety of experiences that we have, with so many of them being unplanned and maybe even the opposite of what we expected. The interesting thing to think about is how others experiences in their own lives are what led you to the experiences that you've had in your own life and even the opportunity to have them. As a good friend of mine recently said, "Our time is not infinite here on these grounds, enjoy those little moments like: weddings, first days of school, holidays, small victories, helping others and loving each other." That's really what life is in a sense, a series of experiences that everyone has that make a whole picture when put together. It's no surprise then that experience, is in fact, life's greatest teacher.
Just a thought.
