How to measure life
half a cup of giggles and a quart of love
Have you noticed how everybody seems to be measuring these days. There are watches and rings that measure heart rate, sleep quality and body temperature. You can tell your heart rate when you’re sleeping. You know your heart rate when you’ve been drinking and you know your heart rate when you’ve been exercising. We measure how many followers we have, we measure how many likes we have, we seem to be tracking progress through graphs and data all the time. We measure our body battery, our airpods battery, our sound levels, how much screen time we had this week. We measure portions, protein amounts, weight, wrinkles and real age vs body age. Its seems we are living in a world where if you don’t measure it, it doesn’t exist. Did we even exercise if we didn’t count our steps or track our progress on Strava?1
What happened before? How did we exist without a tracking device?
It’s got me thinking about the way we choose to measure our life and, in fact, what really defines the measure of a good life. What is the measure of our days?
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
Annie Dillard
Recently I have had the good fortune to hang out with some pretty amazing young people. Three sets of old students, recently returned from university or back for the holidays and then my gorgeous godson. One of these students I had not seen for four years. She was a bright eyed but nervous high school graduate last time we met, now she is a composed, elegant and fascinating 23 year old professional. Some of the others had just completed their first year of college and were full of tales and stories.
When they reached out and asked to meet up I was thrilled. They wanted to meet their old English teacher? I sat with them and heard about their lives, what they’re up to, what they’ve discovered about themselves and the countries they have lived in. I saw the way they had stretched their wings and grown into themselves through experience and meeting people from other places.
My godson, 21, and at the tail end of his Southeast Asia backpacking trip, gave me the privilege to spoil him and show him around Singapore while hearing about his friends, his ideas, his dreams and thoughts.
These kids give me hope. Real hope about the future. If these wise, self assured, sensitive, curious, compassionate young people are in charge we are going to be ok. Hope also came from the fact that all of these young people decided to spend an evening or a few days with me. We broke bread, we spoke, we told stories and we connected.
“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.”
E.M Forster, Howards End.
It also got me thinking about how the only true measure of our lives is who we have touched and who has touched us. We are not an island, we are not beams of light traveling through space alone. Our light only shines when it is beside another. What carries us through our days? Trust. Safety. Hope. Connection.
Love. Really.
The Blue Zones have 9 common denominators, among them, movement, purpose and diet. And they all have without exception a strong sense of community and connection. What are we if not connected souls travelling through time?
Something else I thought about as I was hanging out with these young people: I felt my age. When I heard about all that the backpacker godson had seen and done, the 41,000 step days and the energy he had to do and see it all, I felt tired just hearing about it. In my backpacking days I too, did it all. I don’t travel like that anymore. I want to go deeper and not wider, let my net catch few fish but make them beautiful.
On a steamy Singapore night, a few friends and I went out dancing and, again, I felt my age. But not in a bad way. I was definitely the second oldest person in the bar and I didn’t have the energy to jump up and down as vigorously as the bachelorette I spotted at her bash. But I didn’t mourn the fact that I was older. I wouldn’t want to be 25 again. I am happy to dance and then call it a night while everyone else orders another drink. Less is more these days. A small, rich life is the one I want.
I realized I am not interested in measuring the heartbeats or minutes, steps or calories. I want to measure how much I laugh, listen and learn. I want to count the smiles of my friends, the people I trust and love.
I want to wrap myself in a quilt made of connected stories, dreams and sunsets that celebrate the glow of a day well spent.
We went to the theatre and saw an excellent play called Disgraced. It won the Pulitzer in 2013 and is still as relevant as ever. Shocking, uncomfortable and lots of food for thought. If it ever comes to a theatre near you I highly recommend that you try and see it.
Daughters is a brilliant and must see documentary and since it is on Netflix, it is an easy one to find. It is about a program in the US that organizes a Daddy and Daughter dance for incarcerated prisoners. SO GOOD. (yes, you will cry but oh, so worth it.)
Elizabeth Taylor: The lost tapes is another fabulous documentary that will leave you in awe of the great Liz Taylor. Try and find this one, it will transport you back to another era. Did you know that Taylor was the first actor, male or female to be paid a million dollars for a film? Smart as a whip and knowing her worth, she negotiated that salary for Cleopatra.
History Nerd alert! I binged 8 episodes of The Rest is History on the French Revolution. History + Banter + good story telling.
Finally, this podcast is a beautiful interview between Krista Tippett and Ross Gay about the place of joy in our lives. It is a tonic.
In love with this song:
Thank you for reading and visiting me in my Notes from the Middle. If you enjoyed this please tap the heart, it helps others find me and shows me your love!
Sam x
If you love Strava please go for it! Whatever floats your boat.
This article just spoke to me so deeply. I needed some positivity and re-framing today and your writing delivered!