We worry a lot about numbers. Financial numbers mostly. Bills here, paychecks there, debts and bonuses, losses and gains.
At any given time, they are just numbers. A plus and a minus that nets out to something we’ll live with. More stressed, or more at ease: a cycle that continues to prod and please.
They are not the numbers that matter. Look instead at a digit representing the times you’ve been through childbirth, or laughs per day, or the times you’ve made love. Count the pictures you’ve taken of people and things, the shots you may not look at but had to take — just because they were so beautiful.
Ponder the grains of sand on a powdery white beach, the porpoises in a pod, fish in school. Add up the people you know or hugs you’ve given. For those are the numbers that matter.