a matter of experience ...

Babies are masters of trial-and-error learning. Which is why they fall repeatedly. They do it in a relaxed, almost confortable way, making it unlikely that they will be harmed. And sometimes they do hurt themselves.

Anxious, controlling parents, however, often induce shock or fear reactions in their children by communicating their own fear about what the baby is doing. "Oh my God! You'll hurt yourself" they exclaim as baby Jack starts his odyssey across the lawn.

And so, like a computer that has been programmed to believe "you'll hurt yourself", we believe this lie as we spend our whole lives avoiding trial-and-error learning, preferring instead to learn only from the stuff we read in textbooks, hear in the news, and are told by our parents and friends.

It is only the person who has had the experience of 'love' who knows what 'love' is. It is only the person who has experienced 'pain' who know what 'pain' is. It is only the baby who has tried to walk and fallen who knows what it means to fall, and to walk.

Your experience of life is the only basis for living your life, not what others tell you how. There is no other way. There is no other 'truth'.