What are the effects of a new experience - Essay Example

Effects of a new experience: New experiences are extremely essential for learning and attainment of knowledge. New experiences make us grow, and become prudent in our approach towards life. That is why, the more experienced an individual is in a certain field, the more he/she is preferred for selection in the job pertaining to that field. This paper discusses some of the effects of experience. New experiences alter an individual’s concepts about the subject of experience. Let’s examine the case from the perspective of a child.

Children are brave because they have no knowledge of the dangers associated with things like plugs. A child would be less than half as reluctant as an adult to intrude his finger into a plug turned on because he does not know that it can hurt. However, when the child has had an experience of being hurt by an electric shock upon the intrusion of finger into the plug at least once, he would remember for the next time the potential danger associated with the act, and would become just as reluctant to do the act in the future as an adult, because the two would have, at this stage, gained the same amount of knowledge about the dangers of electricity.

From this example, it can be estimated that experiences shape an individual’s approach towards different matters of life. The changed perception tells an individual what course of action should be adopted in similar circumstances in the future. This is done through a process called as “reflection”. Reflection is a process in which an individual analyzes his/her past experiences, picks out the mistakes he/she did in the very experience, works out a variety of solutions to the problem thus identified, and chooses the most viable solution for the next time.

This is essentially a process of personal development through self-realization. In this process, an individual gets an opportunity to learn from his/her mistakes. In the capacity of being a human, all of us commit mistakes. Committing mistakes is quite normal. In fact, committing a mistake once is essential for not committing the same mistake twice as one gets to learn from the past experiences. This is the key to success. People who don’t learn from their experiences never succeed in life.

Sometimes, one bad new experience shatters an individual’s confidence and he/she becomes pessimistic in his/her approach about the subject of experience. Let’s take the example of a person who has sufficient capital to invest in a business. He decides to start a business of his own, though, when he does that, he does not succeed. He incurs a loss instead of profit. He does not realize that it was because of his wrong approach. Instead, he blames his fortune for the loss thus incurred, and makes up his mind never to do the business again.

Such people never succeed. In order to succeed, one has to keep trying unless one achieves success. One should learn from bad experiences, and adopt rational course of action in the future in order to be successful. It is essential to remain optimistic in order to succeed in life. New experience is essential in order to understand the world. Without experiences, one can only make predictions about this that may or may not be true. Experience is essential for practical learning and development of understanding.