The power of new experiences

Imagine a world where everything was predetermined. Every day you would wake up in the same place, you would drink the same coffee, you would talk with the same people. Of course, you would be free from unpleasant surprises and you would not ever wonder again what the future holds for you. But, what would happen with pleasant surprises? Would you really sense enthusiasm, ecstasy, delight? What would happen with the experiences which you had never managed to live?

During our lives, we live new experiences every day. They might be simple, like tasting a new kind of dish, or they may be bolder, like making a long journey for example.

As human, we have the tendency not to always welcome new experiences fervently. That might happen because we either feel uncomfortable to get away from our everyday habits, or simply because we fear the new and unknown. This reaction is only natural as it stems from our survival instinct that every person feels deep inside. The same feeling is what tells us that we cannot survive, let alone live in routine. It is what ultimately pushes us towards these new experiences.

New experiences help us discover the world around us, and acquire knowledge which we would ignore under different circumstances. Wouldn’t it be easier to learn the length of a river if we decided that we would explore it ourselves?

However, through new experiences we do not only discover the world, but our self. A swimmer would not know how to swim if he/she never got into the sea. That’s how we build our character, we learn our tastes, we cultivate our ideas. It is, however, a way to learn our limits and strengths.

Beyond the formation of our personality, we simultaneously discover our soul. There are sentiments which we withhold and many times we even ignore their existence. If we never try to do something bold, we will never know what adrenaline is. If we never dare to do something which seems impossible, we will never know what satisfaction is. If we never seek human touch we will never know companionship.

All this introspection can become more interesting when we try new things with other people. A new experience is by itself a way of communication and socialization. But it’s not only that. The more intense the experience is, the stronger the bond we create is. After all, it is not by plain chance that we still preserve friendships from our childhood years .

New experiences constitute the driving force of our lives. Without them, we simply are machines, predestined to execute just one operation, that of surviving. But human’s journey on earth is defined by no one else than ourselves. Therefore, our experiences are what makes us who we are. When we dare to live new things we simply cannot lose anything, rather than win.

A journey of a thousand kilometers begins with one step

Lao Che

Translation: Miltos Bizios

Review; Niki Saridaki

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