When there’s no math involved

Math makes life easy.

Engineers design bridges that don’t fall down, economists plan budgets for spending, and scientists send shuttles into space.

When there’s no math involved, things can be difficult to measure, as can making decisions.

Take purpose, for example. You have purpose in your relationships, in your business, in life. You may set intentions, you may have goals, you may even a vision of what things could (should) look like.

But if you don’t know what the purpose is, how will you do the work to achieve it?

Or, if you do know what the purpose is, how do you measure progress? How do you know if you’re headed in the right direction?

Questions like these can feel uncomfortable. On the one hand, if you declare a purpose and things don’t go the way you want, you may experience a feeling of failure.

On the other hand, it’s easy to take things like purpose and try to measure them with numbers, because otherwise you’ll have to face the uncertainty of it and that’s too scary. It’s a little like trying to substitute quality with quantity. It rarely works.

The CEO that looks only at his company profits but ignores the lack of true leadership. The parent that brags about his kid’s accomplishments but is never around to engage with her. Or, the many among us with hundreds of online “friends” but lacking true connection in real life. Without concrete numbers for validation, it is easy to avoid being clear about our intentions, our purpose, or how we want to live our lives.

Math is amazing, a true testament to the evolution of human intellect, offering countless benefits when applied in service of humanity.

But as a tool for measuring things that require something deeper, it doesn’t work. Things like trust. Empathy. Self-awareness. Honesty. Integrity. Resilience. Courage.

At times, we will fall, we will have to give more than we can take, and we may not always have the space we need to grow.

But just because we can’t be sure, just because there are no numbers attached, doesn’t mean we cannot try. We can show up. We can look within and do our part instead of blaming others. We can try again after we fail. We can learn, and do better.

When there’s no math involved, this is how we keep ourselves accountable.

*Photo by Lerone Pieters on Unsplash