Create experiences that leave you in awe, for those will be the highlights of your life.

-Ryan Blair

Awe and wonder, two words often used interchangeably, are integral to the human experience. These experiences are the places we go, says Brené Brown in Atlas of the Heart, when “it’s beyond us,” when something is vast and expansive yet offers a sense of connectedness.

Though wonder and awe are similar, they cultivate ever so slightly different emotions.

Wonder is defined as “the rapt attention and deep emotion caused by something extraordinary.”

Awe is “the feeling we get in the presence of something vast that challenges our understanding of the world.”

Researchers Ulrich Weger and Johannes Wagemann characterize these two emotions in a slightly different way. “Wonder inspires the wish to understand. Awe inspires the desire to let shine, to acknowledge and unite.”