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People grow up day after day in the passage of life, listening to other’s advice and direction, and experiencing the world by themselves. In fact, the two ways are indispensable for anyone to have a complete life. A person who cannot accept others’ suggestions will make arbitrary decisions and the one who never tries to overcome the difficulties in life will turn out to be regretful. If I have to choose which way is preferable, in my opinion, personal experience plays a more important role than listening to others as learning about life is the concerned point.
In most circumstances of life, without personal experience, one cannot understand the real case. Admittedly, the advice of family and friends will be helpful since they may know more than us and have our best interest in mind; however, their experience to which they are suited may fail in us. Like a lamb needs to pass a river for the first time, we will encounter many different cases in our life How deep is the river? If the lamb asks a cow, it would say very shallow, but the answer from a chicken is that it is dangerous and very deep. Without personal experience, we cannot judge which advice is wiser and more suitable for us. Actually, only after the lamb puts its legs in the river does it realize the river is neither to deep nor too low.
Another aspect personal experience is important lies in the fantastic pleasure it brings to people that cannot be substituted by anything else. Our laughter and tears in the end are individual, which can be shared but never be exactly felt by others no matter how they love us and care for us. Only through personal experience can we celebrate our joys heartedly after a success and think more about our failures deeply. In this sense, life is a process of accumulate individual experiences. Without personal experience, one’s life will be like a blank paper full of sentences from other people other than a book written with his or her own feelings.
Of course, listening to advice from family members and friends will be helpful, which can save us a lot of time and avoid some unnecessary hurts. Therefore, a person with strong will who is open-minded to others’ suggestions and criticism will be the one that gets most from his or her life. |