The Experience

You are not always responsible for how other people experience you

A while back I met up with someone who I hadn’t spoken to in a while and it wasn’t necessarily to reconcile and reconvene my relationship with them; but to put closure to the past. I remember sitting down with this old friend and them saying to me “I honestly don’t even know why we don’t speak anymore?”

And in that moment, my mind quickly scanned its memory banks. Remembering the countless WhatsApp and text messages I had sent to them about how I felt about the nature of our relationship. And not to mention, the numerous phone calls expressing how I was more present then they were over the past year and a half.

One of these things is not like the other

However the Dr. Drew in me quickly kicked in when I came to a grand revelation. That revelation was that I can not argue with someone else’s experience, it is always going to be a losing battle. I said to myself, “DC they have their experience just as you have yours.” Therefore, in that moment I just sat quietly and realized while we had the same experience; we did not necessarily “experience” things the same way.

No two people experience their journeys with one another the same exact way. Think about siblings growing up in the same household. Their experiences and journeys may parallel, but they do not perceive their experiences the same. They see things with different eyes, hear things with different ears and speak things with different words.

Its another reason why two people can be in the same relationship but recount two totally different recollection of events. You can never control how people experience you. Now this is by no means an excuse to be a total jerk or professional gaslighter. But what it means is that you do not have to be in bondage to someone else’s perception of you.

Freedom

Not being a slave to someone’s perception of you is one of the biggest freedoms you can grant yourself. Because sometimes people will perceive and experience you based on past experiences and beliefs of their own. Some of which will have nothing to do with you.

Say a young person helps a senior citizen to cross the street and there are two people nearby watching. The person on left may think to themselves “What a good young person helping them out, God bless them.” Whereas, the person on the right is instead thinking “I wonder what their agenda is? That young person will probably rob them before they finish crossing the street!”

Do you ever recall a time where you told someone that what you said or did is not what you meant from how it seemed to them? And then they responded to you “but that’s how I took it.” Well that in itself is another example of how what your intention may have been didn’t align with how someone received it in their experience.

It’s important to note that two people alone may not hear the same thing let alone hear what is actually being said. You could be trying on clothes in front of someone and they say to you “Why don’t you try another outfit, I think it may be better?” However you may instead, "you look terrible.” And you may not even hear nothing else after that. It’s important to note this when in an experience. What are you actually hearing and seeing?

The Fight is over

That day of the sit down with my old friend, I never counteracted what they said. And this is not because I didn’t feel I was right or because I wanted to simply maintain the peace. But I realized with my Dr. Drew lens on, that this is their experience. And I will never fight or argue against someone else’s experience. That is their reality. I can only present what my experience was to provide them with a different outlook.

And not arguing with someone else’s experience brought about a peace for me. Because you don’t always have to defend your experience. Now this article is by no means a nonchalant way to bypass the sh**ty behavior we may experience with others nor any mistreatment we may have received. It just means we don’t have to prove what we experienced on our journey to solidify it.

Our journey is not be proven but to be lived and experienced. And what that experience will be, will be up to us in the end.