One facet of my life I am placing emphasis on improving is being able to understand before I experience.

We all collect wisdom, and learn lessons from others, but it tends to makes sense when we ourselves go through it.

We, as humans, learn through experience, so it’s extremely difficult to begin to truly appreciate or understand another circumstance without having gone through it.

We often communicate our circumstance to others to acquire space, sympathy, or understanding.

People have 2 responses, generally:

1. They trust you, and your recount of the circumstance, and act on this trust.
2. They don’t inherently trust you, and need to experience it themselves to truly understand.

I fall into both categories, as do most others.

This skill is generally referred to as having empathy.

This reflection is sprouted at the following desire:

I shouldn’t need to become a parent to better understand my parents.

The positions they’re in.
The feelings they possess.
The instincts they act on.
The life they live.
The sacrifices they make.

These are all things I can better understand, and hope to develop a better grip on, without needing to become a parent myself.

We can strive for this in many more instances of our life, this is just one particular instance.