I heard this definition of experience while at startup camp 3 over the weekend and it’s pretty much spot on.

Experience is the thing you get after you needed it

This quote stuck in my mind because it somehow ringed “true”, like I’ve experienced it

The dictionary define experience as

a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event

Which is a mundane and objective definition, but if you think about it, the two definitions are quite similar. The first one is a little more restricted in that it requires you to have “needed” the experience where as the latter applies more generally to all experience.

The second quote would have never stuck in my mind. It’s distant,  emotionless, and contains no personal pronouns. Understanding the definition requires you to imagine an arbitrary “thing” or “event” and then imagine ones involvement. The first one stuck because it used “you” which immediately draws up first hand personal memories, and those memories are more readily available. It requires less thinking to understand, and a brain like mine likes simple things.