Life's Artificially Flavored Numbers

"A good decision is based on knowledge and not numbers." ~Plato

I can't explain why I chose age 27. That age and number have zero significance to me. All I know is that when I got to college, that's the age I chose for when I was going to get married. Perhaps that was an 18 year-old's projection for when life says, "Halt! You've had enough fun spending your own money. Time to let someone else spend it." Maybe my brain calculated ages that would be too old to have toddlers or teenagers in the house. Maybe I was just young and dumb.

The biggest problem, however, was that '27' stuck with me, engraved in my brain, for a long, long, time...and then from age 27 to 33, I had a heightened sense of anxiety that I was behind. Behind in life. Like I had missed the bus. As if joining AARP the same year I said my vows was a terrible thing. Maybe I was just young and dumb.

Next let me introduce you to Miles. I met Miles my freshman year of college (just a coincidence to the previous story), and I only remember Miles for 1 reason: The second he learned that the average engineering salary was $55,000...well, $55,000 became the weirdest obsession I've ever seen. You couldn't have a conversation about classes or future without Miles bringing it up. That number became his mission. A number. A large dollar number. I lost touch with Miles after our junior year, but his fixation always made me wonder about his career path and first salary.

Fast-Forward to 2 weeks ago, when a friend of mine (female, age 37) declared that if she had not had children by age 39, then she would simply not being having children. Ever. It made me genuinely sad- if for no other reason, than my strong belief that she'd be a fabulous mother. A motherhood that may never happen, possibly because of another number. This time the number was 39.

What if I told you...That I could give you tons of parental success stories after age 40?  that salary medians don't often compare apples to apples? that your marriage longevity will correlate better with your patience, rather than a timeline? that your neighbor's wealth doesn't have anything to do with your happiness? that you have enough pressures in your life so you don't need fake ones?

But I get it. You have all those numbers stuck in your head. Constantly comparing and measuring yourself as if every milestone in your life is your next battle of Keeping Up with the Joneses.  Stupid numbers.

Let's all take a deep breath and focus on one number that peeks at you every now and then. An age. A wage. A GPA. A date.  What does that number really mean? Does life end if we happened to come up just little bit short? After our recent bold stand against the Mayan calendar, that would be almost tragic if a nonsense benchmark got the best of us.

It's human nature to make comparisons and set benchmarks for ourselves. And some of those goals are absolutely worth achieving, or at least worth striving for. Let's just not beat ourselves up over the artificial ones. I wasn't married at 27. And my first job was less than the Engineering median. I let both of those affect my judgement and the way I saw my life. Yet, here I sit, with a normal pulse and blood pressure. Alive and well. I survived. I survived, because, in the end, those numbers meant absolutely nothing. If anything, I'm mad at myself for the time I lost dwelling.

So take your numbers, and simply lighten your grip on them. They'll still be there, and you can always come back and make your comparisons...maybe even nudge them a little. Just don't let them be your main focus. Put more energy into making today a better day and giving it everything you have. If you start focusing on the now and the things you have influence over, you'll soon begin to see that the ages, the dollar amounts, and the other artificial numbers, don't mean much of anything.

Now go make today great.


~Coach Jake

P.S. www.MaximalMe.com Life Coaching combines the powers of Time Management with both your short-term and long-term goals to create a plan that works perfectly into your schedule.