What We Carry Forward Becomes Wisdom

Nothing is a waste of time if we use the experience wisely.

I came across these words again recently, and they made me stop and think.

There are experiences in life we don't fully understand while we're living through them.

At the time, we may know they have changed us. We may even recognise that we have learned something from them. Yet it can take years before we understand just how much.

Time has a way of giving us a different view.

Looking back doesn't change what happened. It doesn't suddenly make a difficult experience good, nor does it mean we would choose to live through it again.

What it can give us is a deeper understanding.

We begin to recognise what the experience taught us about ourselves, about other people, and about life.

We discover what truly mattered and what didn't.

We see the strength we found when we needed it. The choices we made. The things we would do differently now. Perhaps even the things we once thought were important that no longer hold the same place in our lives.

And somewhere along the way, experience begins to become wisdom.

I think that's one of the beautiful things about growing through life. We don't have to have all the answers while we're living through something.

Understanding can come later.

Sometimes, much later.

There are things I can look back on now and understand on a far deeper level than I ever could when I was actually living through them. The experience hasn't changed.

I have.

And with that change has come a different understanding of what I want to carry forward.

Because every experience becomes part of our story.

But we don't have to carry every part of it with us forever.

We can carry the lessons.

We can carry the understanding.

We can carry the wisdom.

And perhaps, when the time is right, we can share some of that wisdom with someone else who may need it.

The experience becomes part of our story.
What we carry forward from it becomes wisdom.

So I'll leave you with a question…

Is there an experience in your own life that you understand differently now than you did when you were living through it?

Love,
Narelle x