The Problem with Numbers Short

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted – Albert Einstein

Numbers (money, time, computers) govern the modern world like no other.

Numbers are also everywhere in nature.

Obviously numbers are of critical importance.

But numbers are also quite new for humanity and, before the industrial revolution and mass education, they were used only by small groups of mathematicians, so we never had the time and possibilities to develop an intuition about numbers and abstraction.

Life is full of situations when numbers are all around but the real challenge is not to count or do mathematical operations with them. It’s to understand the abstraction, to understand what they represent and what the context is. ¹

Numbers don’t bring sustainable long term happiness.²

Numbers can bring long term unhappiness – This mostly happens when envy poisons a life and is often observed in reality. A main source of envy is numbers, especially money and achievements.³

Numbers cause emotions of at least the same strength as similar non-number events. ⁴ Envy is so primal and powerful and destructive, it can ruin massive sources of true happiness like love and friendships.

A big danger about numbers is that they are easy to compare ⁵

Say you forgot to pay a fine and you realize that you have to pay the fine + fines for not paying the fine + interest = $750.

On a Game of Life level, you’re down $750 + some time to pay the fine + lost focus.

On a Game of Self level you have two choices: Bash yourself for not paying on time, or simply accepting the past you cannot change. The only way to achieve the maximum in this situation is to completely ignore it emotionally.

The more emotional you are, the more you load up your future with expectations. And those expectations will lower your happiness when you crash with reality.

In the long term emotions about numbers load you with potential only for damage – expectations, lower self-love or envy.

Avoid number related emotions, don’t give them space, don’t give them time, don’t give them reasons.

Friends, love, freedom, creativity are all so much more important than numbers! If you fill your life with all those, you’ll stop caring about numbers naturally. A total win-win!

We just took the best possible care of your emotions and happiness, but left The Game of Life behind for a while. And leaving reality aside is kind of a problem. In the modern world it’s hard to have the all-important freedom if you don’t have any money. And money is numbers. You have to understand money. And understanding requires interest and curiosity, which are forms of love – a strong emotion. So you have to love numbers as a concept, explore them, just not care about… your numbers? This is extremely counterintuitive. You’ll have to combine two golden rules:

1. If the number represents another number(s), then it’s Game of Life stuff and you can dive in as your emotions are not in danger. You may want to know how the world works. Truth deserves love by itself. And numbers are part of the truth. So dig in.
2. If the number represents a non-number value like your performance evaluation or directly your self-worth, then emotions and happiness are in danger. This is the moment to avoid, ignore, not care and resist the natural temptation to be invested. This is where it’s not worth reacting emotionally.

The first is very important, but boring.

The second is a direct clash with our natural Fear of scarcity (closely related to FOMO) and our Inferiority complex (that according to this study an astounding 8 out of 10 millennials have). Fear demands that you know what is going on with numbers and be emotionally invested. It’s not easy to let go but it’s worth fighting for.

If you’re an entrepreneur you’ll quickly find an inflection point between the two – pricing your product or service. On one hand, cold free market rules and long term profit maximization apply because the price just reflects how the market sees demand and supply (both numbers). On the other, the price is a direct psychological projection of your confidence and self-worth.⁶ The right way to approach pricing is following cold free market rules. Never be afraid to price high. Or having vastly different prices for different clients.

There is one case where numbers should be massively used – Probabilities. It’s a number worth guessing. Practice and your brain will develop a probability intuition that is extremely useful.

Similarly, when dealing with numbers representing other number(s) use only exact numbers. A key characteristic of financially successful people and entrepreneurs is they love being specific and hate ambiguous numbers. 

Game of Life asset valuations and other numbers of the safe kind such as probabilities also give you a useful self-growth “sandbox” to improve yourself within. The challenge is to be mindful about the emotions and expectations resulting from numbers. While in hunter mode you have the power to observe the emotional reactions, rather than succumb to them. This mild variant of Exposure therapy should ideally result in the habit of not reacting emotionally to anything numerical.

Numbers belong in the mind. Feelings belong in the heart. Don’t mix them.

but also…

Love your freedom. Let the heart help the mind earn the money to make it happen.