Quantifiable success

Quantifiable success has become one of the most important aspects of our lives. It is now demanded that you are able to translate your success into numbers, titles and achievements, so that when shared, everyone becomes transfixed.

If you are unable to quantify your success or even put it down in simple 140 characters that fit your chosen social media platform bio, then you might as well shun modern life.

Even if you choose to escape modern intrusions by being a social media hermit, still, you won't be spared. Running errands, you will bump into someone who will ask you something like "so, what are you doing now" or "where are you now?" or "done anything lately?". All of those intrusive questions that ask you to sum up your life experience into three words, or five seconds, or as long as the stranger who asked you has given you audience.

If the question is asked to forge a true connection or to find a common ground, it would be a welcomed one. In truth, it is often asked as a way to assess your worth, and to compare your life to that of the stranger's. When you respond with "nothing much", you can almost hear their internal sigh of relief as they note their secret triumph over you.

Insecurities are the constant shadows that follow us around, plaguing our every move. We ask questions that enable us to label people as winners or losers, as if by counting the number of losers we meet on our way, we will have achieved some sort of success.

We have become successful in finding the trivialities of life and making them seem as if they are the necessities of it. We have become masters of emptiness, chasing whatever will bring us fleeting relief that we are on the top of the hierarchy.

How do we quantify things like overcoming trust issues, or conquering anxiety or battling daily depression? Things that out us as weaklings and make us vulnerable in a world that only accepts power as its currency. There are so many achievements that can't be put into words, let alone numbers, because they can only be felt or acknowledged internally. You can lead a valuable life that seems to others as a waste of breath.

I end this with a sigh.

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