Experience

“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” -Aldous Huxley

I have been trying to live by this quote ever since I read it over 10 years ago.

It's hard; Especially when you account for the emotional toll of an experience (positive or negative) and for the continual unfolding of hidden, nuanced and missed meanings that we only gain with time and further experience. I still revisit experiences from years ago and if I am being truly honest and introspective with myself, I find a lot more meaning than what I had originally thought. And that is the beauty and the brilliance of this quote.

We may experience something and file it away
We may experience something and ride that high we got from it until we no longer can
But true growth come from revisiting, not re-experiencing, such milestones in our lives and trying to understand the layers upon layers of meaning they may entail.