I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the importance of experience lately, largely driven by my own explorations of what I most want in life (which is primarily centered around experiences, not things).

My friend Ruthie has been exploring this as well, and as I read her recent blog post about gift giving, it occurred to me that there are many deep reasons behind why we find experience so magical.

An experience on its own certainly has magic to it – listening to a beautiful piece of music or eating an amazing piece of chocolate, even if there is no one else around, can transport you and move you.

But often experience brings with it the opportunity to connect with others. You meet people who are taking that cooking class or attending that meditation retreat with you and you connect, in part because you already have one thing in common. And as Ruthie points out, this experience can then beget more experiences – spending more time with the people that you’ve met, eating dinner together, taking another class.

Out of that one initial experience you get the benefits of both the experience itself and the benefits of human connection.

In addition, each experience provides the opportunity to fuel your curiosity, and lead to you seeking more experiences, starting the whole cycle over again.

The benefits of experience are exponential.