The Library of Life Experience: Accumulating Wisdom Through Time

(My original piece with my thought process)

We have twenty somethings giving life advises on the Net these days. Sick? Yeah, because life does not teach much at twenty, neither at thirty or forty. It is a journey of life events that shape how one thinks as events unfold to give the library of experience that one can refer to at the face of adversity.

Some life events will be beautiful, some would be painful. Nevertheless, every event would teach something — learnings to add to the coffer of experience and wisdom.

Would that mean someone who is eighty will have more wisdom? Probably, yes. Would that mean a kid will have less wisdom? Probably yes. The way life has been designed is that it is time based.

We age according to time. On natural progression one will not be able to reach sixty after fifteen. Life events happen according to time. It is linear and moves in one direction. That means, one can never turn the clock back, go back to the past and re boot life. Of course, second chances do come by.

For example, when my daughter and I walked through the hanging bridge at a theme park, it took us 45 whole minutes to walk across while others were jay walking past us! At the end of the 45 minutes, we successfully made across the 300 metres. That remained an experience that became our point of reference whenever we had difficulties that we needed to overcome. Nothing, it was just fear in her and I tagged along to support her to the finishing line. Could have gone back and did it again but the history remained — 300 metres in 45 minutes. The learnings would have served some purpose second time around.

Likewise, when we go through difficulties or tests, how we come out of it become reference points that we could fall back upon when similar tests and trials happen sometime in distant future. These tests do not come all at one time and then life becomes absolutely beautiful. The lessons come in intervals. Eventually, we become aged as we edge towards the end of the linear time line, by when we would have accumulated many reference points.

Now compare that to a twenty or thirty year old; how many reference points they could possibly have at that point in their lives? How many struggles could they have gone through and learnt from when they hit their twenties? Some could probably be still under their family roof trying to figure out how to build their lives.

So, next time you think you have made a few hundred thousand working three hours a day, at the age of twenty or thirty, save it. Tell me when you are fifty whether the few hundreds lasted till your half century and whether it was a workable model when you met that accident and lost one or both limbs, and took five years to recover emotionally to regain your confidence.

If at fifty, having lost both limbs, went into depression for five years, made it out alive and have figured out a way to make a few hundred thousands working a few hours a day — I am all ears!