Risk.

"You miss 100 percent of all of the shots that you don't take." You have to be willing to take risks to learn. Experience comes through happiness, and hurt. Personally, I grew the most due to the things that hurt me in the end. Of course this is frightening, nobody likes the unknown. But once you break free of that, it can turn into something beautiful. You won't know if you don't take the chance to see.

Patience.

When it comes to personal growth, it's a lot like weight loss. You go through a lot and expect that the results will present themselves immediately. This is not the case, however. They always say "patience is a virtue." Well, patience is the key element to experience as well. Things won't get better, until they get worse. You won't know what good will come to you, if you don't wait. It's simple.

Loss

Just as experience brings to us successes, through these successes it can also bring about loss. Sometimes, we have to sacrifice some things to allow new things to happen for us. Sometimes, when you meet people that make you happy, you have to let go of those that don't. Sometimes, when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, you need to consider what is best for you. Sometimes, when scheduling doesn't work out, you have to plan accordingly, and maybe consider what you NEED to do vs. what you WANT to do. Also, when thinking about this from another view, death is a huge part of life as well, of experience. "In the time between being hit and being missed lives are changed" (Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven). Death effects all people, at least those that are left behind. I can't speak for those that have left. Even if you don't know someone well, it's a reality check. You value more, consider more. With this experience, your personal growth is aided even further. I believe loss of life, friends, family, innocence, it all changes people more than anything else in life. That's my personal belief, because that's my own personal experience. Loss is a broad subject, but it all comes down to the main idea of "experience." Loss has been the largest stepping stone in my life. I'm not done losing, never done losing, but I'm also not done gaining either. Life has ups and downs, everyone just has to remember that there's an end to all things, just as there's an end to sadness, loneliness, pain. It's all in how you look at it. I've come to love my loss the more familiar it is to me. I've learned more about myself through losing than through anything else. I value that. As strange as it may seem.

Successes

Through experience, there are highs and lows. Life is unpredictable. Experience eventually it allows you to end up exactly where you'd like to be. I believe that this is HUGE when considering the journeys one embarks on to gain said experience. Once your battle is over and you look back into all the events that lead you to your new discovery, your new realization, even if it didn't exactly go as planned or shape you into what you wanted to be, or get you where you wanted to go, I personally feel like any progress at all is considered a victory, a success. Even if your results aren't positive, I personally believe that if they go the opposite way, you will find out what you DON'T want or what you DON'T like, and that's nearly as good as learning and gaining the things you do. Life comes in steps. Trials. Each thing happens for a reason, and I'm a firm believer in this. Through experience, through self discovery, I believe every lesson is experience, and every experience is another step on the road of personal growth.

"Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?"

--> What exactly is "experience?"

Experience is such a vast subject. It's a concept that can include many things, depending on how the person debating it views the world themselves. As an individual, my view is of course going to be much different. In regards to this project, and upon asking myself just what experience truly is, a flood of thoughts washed over me like a tidal wave. So many things came to mind. To quiet the storm, I walked around as I thought and continued to ask myself what exactly this idea meant to me. As I had stated before, to me, experience is personal growth. Personal growth is created by a number of things in itself. But when thinking in regards to my own life, I thought of all the different forms experience can come in. I thought of this concept in terms, never full thoughts. When asking myself "what is experience?" I found myself answering with:

• Experience is travelling, opening your mind and yourself to new places, new cultures.
• Experience is growth of intelligence. Once you touch fire once, you know you'll get burned.
• Experience is discovery, learning more about yourself, the world.
• Experience can be served through relationships.
• Experience is perserverance. If you don't stick around, how will you know the outcome?
• Experience is served through time.
• Experience comes in steps, a mass chain of events.
• Experience is changes, and how these changes effect you as an individual.
• Experience is patience. You don't notice everything right away.
• Experience is risk. "You miss 100 percent of all the shots that you don't take."
• Experience is emotions, how they effect you, how you handle them in the future.
• Experience is made of successes, and failures.
• Experience is irreplaceable, valuable.
• Experience is never the same for any one person.
• Experience can bring out the best in you, but not before it brings out the worst.