In the past month or so, I have added Tumblr to my repertoire of websites that I spend copious amounts of time browsing. Twitter allows users to aggregate information from anyone that might interest them. Facebook allows its users to stay connected with the people, brands and places that are most important to them. Tumblr, on the other hand, has no specific purpose — aside from housing the most random assortment of words, images and ideas on the web.

In that spirit, I recently came across a new “word” while Tumbling that opened my mind in unimaginable ways. The word: sonder.

From the Tumblr: “Sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own — populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness — an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”

Now, technically, sonder is not a word by the traditional dictionary standards of Merriam-Webster or Oxford. However, it has received a definition from anonymous curators of digital culture and the Tumblr world. This word also entered my vocabulary at just the right time — finals season.

Final exam time, more so than any other time of year, often forces us to become not only unrested and overly-caffeinated, but also extremely narcissistic. We have all been there. Those nights that you have to study for an exam, finish a paper and meet up with your team for a dreaded group project can push you into stress zones that make you feel as though your school work is not only the main focus of your life, but the main focus of the rest of the world as well.

With that, I realized how crazy I act during this time of year. The realization was two-fold in terms of how it made me think about life.

The first epiphany was that “each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.” For example, while waiting to print a paper in the library the other day, I became slightly impatient with someone printing what appeared to be an entire semester’s worth of lecture slides. I had released my document from the print station, yet it was nowhere in sight as I saw dozens of graph-filled papers slide into the tray. I was in a hurry and became visibly annoyed at the situation.

Upon considering sonder, though, and subsequently experiencing one of my own, it hit me that being annoyed with someone for rightfully printing slides that they may need for a class is insane. For all I know, they did not notice me, and I was just “an extra sipping coffee in the background.”

The second realization was that the whole world is basically “an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed.”

In simpler terms — the world is gigantic.

Together, the billions of people that inhabit this planet form a massive ecosystem in which each individual is only a small part. Although our final exams, projects and papers feel gigantic, they are just a small speck on the larger spectrum of life and, more importantly, they’re just a tiny speck on the smaller spectrum of our own lives.

I had a sonder, a realization that the random girl sitting next to me inside of Starbucks might have a fantastic life or she might be dealing with a very ill family member.

Sonder is also the first word that made me realize that, to that same girl, I am likely just a nameless, faceless nobody who does not have a life as vivid and complex as her own.

This word and the inherent realization that comes with knowing its “definition” are extremely important for us to recognize, especially as selfish college students. Although we are the center of our own lives, we are just props in the lives of strangers, and, more importantly, we are just a speck in the larger universe.

Who knew one word could pack so much punch?

John is a junior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected].