Don’t Let Numbers Define You

Numbers rule my life. Chances are, they rule your life as well.

There is constant societal pressure to measure up. We are urged to maintain a high GPA, run a fast mile time, accumulate Facebook friends, and achieve a weight portrayed as “ideal” by celebrities and models.

While numbers are good for solving geometry problems and finishing chemistry homework, they can also create unnecessary negative consequences. Hard numerical standards, like those used to determine college acceptance, can be crushing.

Lots of Lamorinda kids are the offspring of parents who attended such elite institutions as Stanford, Cal, Harvard and Yale, and with that comes the pressure to live up to a legacy.  Couple that with record low acceptance rates at these top schools, some as dire as 5.7%. To counter the competition, these students are told to take AP classes, pile on clubs and other extracurriculars, and forfeit unstructured time.

I can’t help but be sucked into this numbers game. I’m driven to have perfect grades. In order to achieve a 4.0 GPA, I lose hours of sleep, skip out on lunch with friends, and spend an exorbitant amount of time studying. I frequent Starbucks an average of 3 times a week to fuel up on caffeine to keep me going, but once the caffeine’s out of my system, I crash. Last semester I earned the grades I wanted, but looking back, I wonder whether or not it was really worth it.

While my academics may be something to admire, the rest of my life seems rather lackluster. I’ve missed out on social events, lost quality time with my family, and haven’t read a book for pleasure in months.

Sure, I experienced that fleeting satisfaction when I opened my report card, but so much was sacrificed for that cold, numerical characterization of my identity.

While not everyone may be motivated by the prospect of perfect academic digits, other numbers dictate their lives. Take for example, athletes. Games depend on  numbers. I remember playing a close tennis match earlier this year which ended in a 7-point tie-breaker. I played hard the whole match, and although my teammate and I won, it was by a mere 2 points. From the disappointment on the faces of the losing team, I could see the horrible affect numbers had had on them. A mere 2 points had, in their eyes, overshadowed the commendable effort they put into the match.

Not only do numbers cause distress in extracurricular sports, but every underclassman also has to strive for the right numbers in Physical Education. The mile time girls must run is a quick 7:45, and for boys, an it’s an even faster 6:45.

While they may be easy enough for the year-round track star, the rest of us have difficulty hitting the standard. I’ve topped out at 8:15 for the mile, and as a result, my PE grade continues to fall.

In spite of my effort, falling short of the numerical standard defines my worth in the grade book.

Numbers follow us into cyberspace as well. Most every teen has a social media account. Be it Instagram, Twitter, Vine or Facebook, people with online accounts are measured by the followers and “friends” they accumulate. One might compare his or her 253 Instagram followers to a friend’s 574 and feel rather worthless. Worse, one might look at Beyoncé’s 29.6 million followers and feel downright insignificant. An inanimate blip on a screen defines us as successful or failing.

The most dangerous numbers are those on the bathroom scale. Because of photoshopped pictures in media and events like the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, many teens are manipulated into being unhappy with their bodies. They can’t be the right size they think, if Taylor Swift is a 2, or their favorite TV actress is a 0. The issue can be just as bad for boys, who worry about not being the correct height or having enough muscle. Though, truly, the damage being done to women in our society by numbers is horrific. According to DoSomething.org, “Approximately 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies.”

Seeing an unsuitable number on the scale can lead girls to resort to starving themselves, and can encourage the development of life-threatening eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia.

Girls are literally risking their lives for numbers.

What can we do about these all-powerful digits? We need to focus on what is actually important. That may be different for each of us. But that’s the great part. Where numbers are objective and emotionless, life isn’t.  The things we want out of life aren’t the sum of a mathematical equation.

Even if you do have to deal with them to a certain extent, numbers don’t have to pressure you or stress you out. Focus on what you’re learning instead of the grade, your athletic effort instead of the time, your great photos instead of your followers, and stop checking the scale. No matter how big and scary they seem, they are just scribbles. Without us, they mean nothing. We are so much without them.