How (Not) to Measure Your Success: the Score Card Fallacy

We look for measuring sticks. It’s not our fault, mostly, because our individual brains yearn for measurement and our collective brains deliver it.

In defense of measuring sticks, how are we supposed to choose which beer to drink or food to order if we have no gauge? How can we choose a course of action or judge others without some notion of The Good and The Bad?

But in most contexts, measurement adds little if any value.

Am I successful?, asks every person ever.

Some judge their worth by their career status. Others by their credit score or money in the bank. Whether they’re married. Or happy. Which school they go to. Their grades. Whether they achieved Goal X by Age Y.

But here’s the thing: Because we can choose from a near-infinite list of criteria, we do. When we want to praise ourselves, we find a standard we exceed. When we want to condemn ourselves, we find one we don’t meet. We don’t own criteria. We rent them.

What if, instead, we bought them?

Or, better yet, what if we chilled the fuck out and laughed at the absurdity of it all?