Monday 12 November 2007

Experience

"Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. "
Aldous Huxley, "Texts and Pretexts", 1932 English critic & novelist (1894 - 1963)

It is interesting how people refer to someone as being very experienced and then proceed to elaborate that the person was worked in the field for 20 years. Does that really mean that they are experienced? Or does it simply mean that they have worked in the field for 20 years? They may not have learnt very much in those 20 years, and perhaps might simply benefit from the practice of going through the same motions again and again. You can have 20 years' experience or you can have 1 year's experience 20 times...