Consider this scenario: 

At Thanksgiving dinner, Alex mentions how much student loan debt their university degree will require. 

A friend, Tony, responds, “I don’t get it. Anyone can get a university degree with no debt if they just do what I did.” 

Tony’s plan was intense: live at home, work full-time at night, attend community college during the day for two and a half years, transfer to a university for the last year and a half, and graduate debt-free.

Tony means well.
But his experience doesn’t match Alex’s.
Alex’s parents moved away, so living at home isn’t an option. There isn’t a community college nearby. Working full-time while studying isn’t realistic. Not to mention, it’d be nice to get some sleep occasionally.

Many of us do this without realizing it: 
We often assume our own experience is more universal than it really is. 
We can call this Experience Bias. 

It often sounds like, “It worked for me, so it should work for everyone.” 
It can also show up the other way around. When something has never been part of your experience, it may not even occur to you that it matters to someone else. It can sound like, “I don’t see why that would be a problem.” 

Your experience is real and important. But it’s only part of the picture.

In a Civic Assembly, your job isn’t to erase your perspective.
It’s to bring it - and hold it with humility and curiosity - knowing that others will bring experiences that are just as real, and often very different.