𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐥o𝐰 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐫a𝐯𝐞

Remember you

What number represents you?

Tell me your shoe size, your height. If you want to get more personal, tell me your weight, your income, the price of every item you possess.
Let's go deeper. How many followers and likes do you have, on any platform at all? What grade did you get on that last exam?

An invasive line of questioning, isn't it? Sounds as if I'm holding a clipboard and meticulously tallying every quantifiable aspect of your life only to answer my first question.

But it's rather vague, rather confusing, so why don't I rephrase it? Put it in words I'm sure have come out your mouth as eyes trail up and down a mirror.

What are you worth?

As a person? A human being? Doesn't really matter as long as we end up with a neat little integer as our total.

Look in the mirror now. Ask again. Listen and watch as your mind quantifies; a computer stuck on a loading screen.

It must be nerve-wracking, waiting for the end result. I bet your fingers are tapping mercilessly against your leg, stomach doing tumbles, breath quickening in stride with your heart.

But I need to tell you something first. I need to tell you that whatever number your brain is so painstakingly calculating, isn't real. Shoe size and height and weight and income and followers and likes and grades are all not real...

You're frowning at me, aren't you? Raising your brow, rolling your eyes because you've heard this all before?

Okay. Try and touch your shoe size. Feel your height. Smell your income. You can't, can you?

All that's possible is picturing those numbers in your mind, letting them fill your head as if their significance was any more than fantasy.
So how do you answer the question?

What are you worth?

I tried for a long time. If a bit indirectly. From the time I knew how to speak, there was more merit to my existence depending on the direction I took a step. The more I performed well in school, the more I competed in sports, the more I did and grew and learned, the more I was praised- the more I was valued.

So on the days I couldn't attain a perfect score, couldn't win first prize, and couldn't, couldn't, couldn't, what could I do but feel worthless?

This cycle of succeed to smile and fail to cry was so fair engrained into me that decades later, even aware I am not represented by meaningless numbers, those associations follow me.

Success is no longer a goal, is it a drug.

Without it, I fall into the lows of withdrawal. When it graces my life once more, I feel high on the imaginary value it brings to my being. 

But I could die today. I could've died yesterday. And there is no doubt in my heart, that when my life comes to an end it's not my successes or failures I will remember. It isn't the times I stared in the mirror and assessed myself like livestock up for auction.

I'll take my final breaths remembering how loud the laughter of my friends rang when we ran through the rain. I'll feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins the first time I let a horse carry me through a dampened forest during sunrise. I'll sense tears pooling down my cheeks and the length of my curving lips as the love of my life told me my stories brought him joy. I'll see the rays of light dancing through the windows, the clicking of a keyboard beneath sore fingers as I bared my soul to words.

So, while I live, I'm learning to realize how much value lies in the little details.

Forget the imaginary ranking systems made to control and quantify what is meant to be subjective and pure and entirely your own.

Remember the beauty of your life lies in how you choose to live it.