Sonder

I was in New York City for the past four days with my husband and daughter. Our daughter, Lauren, is admitted to college theatre programs that we needed to visit before she makes a final decision on where she will attend this Fall.

This trip is her third stay in the city and she seems to fall more in love with it each time. In a city with over eight million people as residents and thousands of tourists, she feels at home. Watching Lauren navigate the city so confidently is helping me believe that maybe we do indeed have destinies in this lifetime and it is our job to live them out.

On our many subway rides this weekend, I was reminded of the awe of humanity. So many humans we encountered were friendly, kind, and accommodating. People are good at heart, I could confirm that over and over again this weekend. I felt this deep connection to humanity as I watched people come and go from the train. We are all trying to figure out what it means to be human at this moment in time. 

As I noticed each person on the train, I kept thinking of how we are all just trying to survive, overcome our fears, find our way, and hold onto hope. 

There was the dressed up couple headed to dinner, the finance guy who worked late on a Friday, the single mom with bags of groceries and two toddlers, the pair of young women clearly intoxicated with new love for each other, the disabled man who found assistance from strangers, the teens laughing at a story that made me wish I knew Spanish, the little girl selling candy on the train with her dad, a disheveled woman with lots of bags who looked like she may have had to leave her home in a hurry, a golfer with clubs headed to play, musicians with their instruments, writers using the time to capture their ideas on paper, a person shading a charcoal sketch of a dog, a grandmother showing her granddaughter how to crochet, and millions of others for whom I wanted to know their story. 

I kept imagining the families who love them. I thought of how each person was a child once and adored by someone. Everyone was a carefree child at some point and now we are adulting in a variety of ways. We have all experienced the highs and lows of life. We all have dreams and desires we want to fulfill. We all want to be happy. We are trying to find success in our own way. We all want good things in our lives. We all know love and loss. 

When I told my daughter I loved watching people on the subway and thinking about their lives, she said, “there’s a word for that, it’s called sonder.” She explained that this word captures the idea of every human having a unique and complicated human experience just like you, they feel the emotions that you also feel, and they are on a life journey just like you are. We all have complex lives unfolding and we pass each other by but all of our lives are intersecting as we are each on our individual paths. 

Sonder - what a beautiful word to help capture our shared human experience. 

When we can remember that we are all sondering through life, we can tap into deeper compassion for each other and for ourselves. Sonder captures the essence of being human. 

In a big city, there is an element of anonymity. Everyone is living their own life and not worried about how you are living yours. It is very likely that you will never see the people next to you on the subway ever again. I felt so inspired by those who were living life on their own terms, expressing themselves, and had a sense of freedom about them. It reminded me to go live my life the way I want to and encourage those around me to do the same. 

The ultimate freedom is to become who you were made to be and listen to the pull of your soul even when it might not make sense to those around you. 

Let’s stop overthinking what someone else thinks of our choices and start making more choices that align with our own souls. Let’s stop living for someone else’s expectations and start creating our own expectations for ourselves. Let’s stop editing ourselves to fit into societal constraints and instead live more free to be you and me. 

We only have so many days on this planet, how do you want to spend them?

Together this week you and I will continue to ponder the word sonder and remember that the trajectory of our life is ours to design. We get to choose the attitudes with which we want to approach our days. Even if circumstances are outside of our control, perspective and attitude are ours to choose.

We are sharing the experience of being human.

I’m so glad my soul’s path intersected with your soul’s path and we are connected through these emails.

Sondering alongside you,