Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you. ~ Mother Teresa
One of the hardest things about divorce is seeing everything reduced to numbers. Credit cards, bank accounts and insurance policies are quantifiable representations of an existence thrown in a pile, divvied up or shut down. Jewelry given as a gift during a burst of love becomes a black digit in your asset column. Artwork purchased on a spark- rekindling weekend is given up in order to keep totals in balance. The home where you intended to raise your family is assessed and given a value to be divided equally. What do you think that antique your mom gave us is worth?
A spreadsheet is created to demonstrate a break-down in hours to be spent per parent with the children.
Self-Worth in Numbers
It’s not only divorce that reduces life to numerals. Much of living is a running total. Income, Facebook friends, followers on Twitter, test scores and body weight are all values we use to determine self-worth. How many times a week do you workout? How many views does your YouTube video have?
Kids and adults play video games to get high score or attain higher levels. I’ve seen kids change the time/date (i.e. cheat) on Call of Duty in order to tell their friends they are on an admirable level. Do they even enjoy playing?
Antidote to Numerical Numbness
Quantifiable results do not make a happy world. To the contrary, most people seem as energized as zombies marching. There is an aura of fatigue that comes with the digitizing of our every endeavor. It truly is not natural to quantify everything. Nature operates in a precise fashion that is appropriately left in mystery, not lit up on a billboard like a Powerball prize. Flower petals bloom in distinct ratios but is that what we think about when we gaze at the bloom in our garden? How do we feel when we see a field 
of wildflowers? Like we want to count them? No. That would be exhausting. We feel at peace in a moment of pause and awe.
If we could only give more and keep track less.
Poetry, nature, music and relationships are the antidote to numerical numbness. More hippie, less yuppie. More space to live awake in harmony not asleep under balance sheets. Humans are not divisible. Neither is rapture. There is not a quantifiable pot of happiness that we have to kill ourselves over in order to seize the lion’s share. There is limitless success in the world. It is not a zero-sum game. One person’s success does not equal another’s loss. In Uncertainty:Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance by Jonathon Fields, artisan, John T. Unger speaks about his business making recycled metal sculptures used as outdoor fire bowls.
If somebody buys a Firebowl, they’re happy they got art; I’m happy I got paid. The freight company is happy ’cause they got to ship something. But also everybody that comes over to the house for dinner and sits around the fire is happy… artists are happy because there’s somebody out there proving you can make a living…
This is a meaningful transference of wealth, not entirely calculable. Some of it is. There is joy in financial freedom; being able to pay your bills, but true success comes when doing what you love lines up with what the world needs.
Busy does not equal important. Measured does not mean mattered. ~ Seth Godin
In divorce, the balance sheet is torn down the middle. Things become calculated flotsam and jetsam in the wake of a relationship’s dissolution. How can couples bear to go through it? Because what they seek is internal peace and liberation, both completely unquantifiable.
Are you most content when dealing with quantifiable or unquantifiable subjects? It often comes down to time and money. How can we change that?
Numbers are often used as a measuring tool when evaluating people or things. She’s a ten. He’s a zero. It’s nice to simply be yourself.;)
Twitter is nice because you can focus on others with similar interests, read their tweets and links and get satisfaction from the material not the popularity.
It’s great that you are giving people and companies constructive feedback. Feedback is unquantifiably valuable or priceless.;)
I’m most comfortable with unquantifiable. I get nervous with numbers because they are a sign of someone evaluating me. Without numbers, that factor is gone, and I am simply myself. On Twitter, as only one person knows I’m on it, I am learning to enjoy other people’s posts and not care who reads mine. I still put thought into all two tweets that I have done so far, but I don’t put thought into who reads it. It’s a nice surprise when I do get a tweet back.
I’m also going off the apps and starting to write letters to people and companies that I’ve been meaning to for awhile or whose product is either very positive or very negative. By people, I mean people I don’t know but respect from what I have learned about them…reaching out.