Word every Gracious Individual should know: Sonder
Definition: Sonder (pronounced: son-der); noun
1. The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness.
Why I love this word:
There are times when it's easy to forget that you are not the only one whose life seems to be flashing by, always changing and forever surprising. The people around you whether they're strangers, family, friends, coworkers, or peers are also living lives as complex and full as yours. It is easy to get into the mindset that you are the only one that is experiencing certain things, the good and the bad, and the moment when you realize that you are not the only one is the moment when you have reached a point of sonder. No matter how different or complex we are from each other, we are all connected in some way impacting those around us. Humans are not made to be alone and sometimes we forget that. When you experience a moment of sonder, you have come to the realization that life is an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed. In which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, or as a lighted window at dusk. Whether we impact their lives or are just a random passerby in the street, we have been written into the book of their lives .
Photograph from Tumblr
Definition: Sonder (pronounced: son-der); noun
1. The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness.
Why I love this word:
There are times when it's easy to forget that you are not the only one whose life seems to be flashing by, always changing and forever surprising. The people around you whether they're strangers, family, friends, coworkers, or peers are also living lives as complex and full as yours. It is easy to get into the mindset that you are the only one that is experiencing certain things, the good and the bad, and the moment when you realize that you are not the only one is the moment when you have reached a point of sonder. No matter how different or complex we are from each other, we are all connected in some way impacting those around us. Humans are not made to be alone and sometimes we forget that. When you experience a moment of sonder, you have come to the realization that life is an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed. In which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, or as a lighted window at dusk. Whether we impact their lives or are just a random passerby in the street, we have been written into the book of their lives .
Photograph from Tumblr
