How we are differently the same

Life is a complex collection of events that happen in one’s life. A mix of various experiences that affect us in all manner of ways. Firstly, I think that life is a blessing because we get to have a chance of experiencing it. However, I think that life is like a ‘neutral line’ that follows its own course, and how we experience that ‘neutral line’ depends on factors that make us who we are and how we respond to life’s events. Whew, that’s deep, but read on to show you what I mean.

When someone is born, they are a clean slate, aside from genetics, they are a new being with no life experience whatsoever. One of the first factors that shape the way we experience life is how we are brought up, where we are brought up, and by whom. Like it or not, this affects how we see life in some way.  A vast way may I add because as I mentioned, one is a clean slate at birth so how we are brought up teaches us the first things we need to know in life. Whatever one learns and experiences in this time, they most likely stick with it and try to fit what they are learning into the experiences they have in life. This boils down to how one was parented, disciplined, interacted with, loved and so much more. 

How we were brought up is just the foundation of who we are. Now we go to one’s emotions and feelings and how we respond to them. Everyone has feelings and everyone reacts differently to those feelings making how we see life unique to everyone. One event can spark various emotions and responses in different people.

Next, we have our physical being. The present person you are that other people can see. Our physical beings are important in experiencing life because, our bodies can affect our emotions, and a lot of other things in us that cause us to react a certain way to things. Also because we need our bodies to actually be alive. We interact with our environment and other people through our physical being making it the first thing that all external factors have to go through to reach us.

All these and so much more(personality, habits, core experiences, health, etc) make an individual a very complex person which means it is not easy to understand people. If each of us has a collection of ‘factors’ that make us the people we are, that means we experience life’s events in completely unique ways. Therefore, to me, this means that we cannot really compare or invalidate ourselves or anyone because how we experience life is totally exclusive to each individual. We may be going through the same thing but as long as different factors make who we are, we can never experience it the same.

 I hope this can shine some light when it comes to comparison especially. You can never know what someone is going through or how they are experiencing it. No matter how shiny or dull someone’s life looks, you can’t know how they are taking it because they are an individual with their unique way of experiencing life. All we can do is watch from the outside looking in and at least try and understand through communication but other than that, there is no way of completely knowing someone’s experiences.

All this may make us seem totally different from each other, but it doesn’t. In fact, it makes us more similar. If two or more things share the same characteristics, they are similar. This means that we ALL have various factors that make each of us who we are. The keyword is ALL because everyone has those factors. Yes, we may be individually unique but that makes us human. We aren’t robots. We are collections of factors that make us differently the same.

-Tori