Softly Sonder

I’ve been thinking a lot about the word “sonder.” It’s one of those words that lands quietly but lingers, shaping how you see the world without demanding much attention. Coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, it describes that sudden realization that everyone around you is living a life as rich and layered as your own, with their own routines, heartbreaks, quiet dreams, and small victories.

It’s humbling, really. Most of the time, it feels like we’re the main characters in the stories we’re living, and in many ways, we are. But sonder reminds us that everyone else is, too. Every person in the coffee shop, every driver in traffic, every neighbor whose light flicks on in the early hours—they’re all carrying entire worlds within them, worlds we may never know but that matter deeply to them.

There’s something tender about that. It softens the edges, making space for compassion to slip in where impatience or disconnection might otherwise live. It’s a quiet reminder that the person in front of you in line has unseen battles they’re carrying, just as you do, and joys they’re holding close, just as you do.

Sonder doesn’t require us to solve the world’s problems or carry the weight of everyone’s stories. It simply asks us to notice. To allow for the possibility that the person who cuts in line might be rushing to get to a loved one, or that the person moving slowly down the grocery aisle might be carrying grief you can’t see. It reminds us that it’s okay to slow down and let someone merge in front of us in traffic, to offer a gentle nod of acknowledgment to a stranger on the street, or to pause and feel the connectedness that exists, even if briefly, in a glance shared between two people who will never meet again.

We live in a noisy world, and it’s easy to shrink down into ourselves, to get caught up in the narrative of our own days. But sonder cracks that open, reminding us that we’re all moving through this life together, each of us trying to make sense of our days, each of us with moments of quiet hope tucked into the corners of our hearts.

For me, sonder feels like a practice—a gentle noticing, a way of moving through the world with softer eyes and a little more reverence for the shared complexity of being human. It’s an invitation to remember that, even in our solitude, we are not alone.