People say there are only five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and feeling. However, I think there is a sixth sense: intuition. Who someone chooses to surround themselves with and how they present themselves is, undeniably, also how well their sense of intuition is.
Intuition isn’t only about how you can figure someone out and their hidden motives, but it’s more so about empathy. The more you can empathize with someone, the more you can see from their perspective and gain an understanding of who they are. Intuition isn’t a guessing game, it’s a strategy game.
To be intuitive is to think outside of your own experiences in order to put yourself in the shoes of others.
In this way, you can figure them out.
A few people in my life have said that I’m really good at psychoanalyzing people. However, I think that I’m not particularly good at psychoanalyzing—it’s just that others don’t give the time and energy to understand their peers. This makes sense because we aren’t living life for the neighbor next door who blasts music at two in the morning. Instead of becoming frustrated and expending energy on negative emotions, it’s much simpler to forgive them and realize that they’re probably having a bad day or a bad week, or maybe even a bad year.
This way of thinking may seem too selfless, but it’s actually benefiting me much more than it’s benefiting others. That’s pretty selfish if you ask me. Even though I am perceived as having great insight into others’ lives, I simply have more practice putting myself in someone else’s shoes.Â
Sometimes this isn’t the greatest superpower, though. Since it seems like I’m understanding people so much, they seem to confide in me in vulnerable situations. And that’s a good thing because I believe that bottling up emotions, especially when vulnerable, is the worst feeling.
I’m not saying that I don’t want to be there to listen and comfort those around me, but sometimes it feels like I’m waiting for someone to understand me like I understand others. I don’t want to be scared to talk about my day or regret talking about my feelings. I’m not the best listener sometimes, but I still try really hard to understand life and humans and make sure everyone feels heard. But it’s hard when you don’t feel heard and you’re still trying to make sure everyone else does.Â
College is a time of reform and change. To be someone new, to be with someone new, it’s all a part of the four years. And I think in college, everyone becomes a bit more understanding because it’s part of maturing. You become wise: intuitively and socially. You can’t grow as a person if you don’t begin to understand the people around you.
Just like with height, people grow intuitively at different rates. Some stop at a certain point, while others keep growing; the difference between height and intuition is that you can always grow your intuition and empathy, but height becomes fixed at a certain point.
You have the power to understand, and that’s the greatest power of all: being able to make a difference.Â