On one of my first dates with my boyfriend, we drove to downtown Chicago to go drive along the lake and eat Steak ‘n Shake. (I love Steak ‘n Shake! Like I am obsessed with their fries and milkshakes.) As we were driving past these huge skyscrapers, I started to think about the human experience; in a single building, there are thousands of people, and they are all going through something completely different. That is so beautiful to me.
I turned to my now boyfriend and said something about that. Thankfully, he did not think I was crazy for spending part of our date thinking about all the people who live in these huge buildings while riding in his car. Instead, he agreed and noted that we were driving past a million different experiences and emotions that these people were facing.
The human experience is beautiful. As a nostalgic, over-thinking 20-something, I think a lot about the human experience. It is so amazing that we can have similar experiences but be millions of miles away or even two doors down from each other. It also amazes me to think that in a single moment, there are others out there who feel the same way I do.
It can also break my heart sometimes because I think about those people who are having bad experiences. Maybe they broke up with their significant other, they got in a car crash or nothing is going their way that day.
The human experience can be either amazing or miserable, and it is typically a mix of the two. We have wonderful days and days that we just wish we could go back to bed. It is beautiful, not because we have those two different outcomes, but because we all share this human experience. We are all a part of this, whether we are a baby or 103 years old.
We all share this human experience. It unifies us; we can look at someone with whom we usually do not get along, but at the same time, see all the shared experiences that bring us together.
It is the same way when we make friends. We may not agree on every single thing - favorite color, band, TV show, but when we find out that we have a shared experience, it doesn’t matter that they cannot stand to listen to Taylor Swift. All that matters is that they understand you, they get you. That is the human experience at work.
Through the human experience, we start to understand each other, and that is all we have ever wanted. We want to be understood by those around us. When we share in an experience, we find that. We find understanding and someone who gets what we are feeling.
Maybe it is just because I am always nostalgic and over-thinking all the time, but I think the human experience is utterly beautiful. It unites and unifies us. It breaks through race, gender and religion because through the human experience, we all have something in common.
