How do you define experience with regard to time?

Question

People will commonly use time and experience in arguments usually to try to gain an upper-hand in "superiority", such as:

"I've been doing this for 30 years, don't tell me what to do!" or "I've been a fisherman since before you were born!" etc.

Say someone says they've been fishing for 30 years. They obviously can't fish every single day, so what constitutes 30 years of experience? 5 days a week, 52 days a year? What about if they only fished during the summertime or just on the occasional weekend? Could they still say they have 30 years of experience?

And who is to say that one person that has 5 years of experience is inferior to someone else who has 30 years? What if the person with 5 years spent 8 hours every day on the ocean whereas the person with 30 years spent every Saturday fishing out of his Koi pond?

It all seems pretty subjective, really.

Answer 1

30 years experience is 30 years experience. It's up to the person evaluating to decide whether being a weekend fisherman for 30 years is enough. But you also have to consider that the experience doesn't just reflect the actual amount of time engaged in the activity. It also involves any time spend reading about or researching the activity; as well as evaluating, processing, and learning from the various hands on experiences.