A busy time of year
October is always busy, at least for me. On the work front, it is appraisal time. On the personal side, there’s Navratri, Diwali, and of course, my birthday too! All of these collude to remind me that I need to measure my life.
How many invitations did I receive for Navratri? How many guests should I invite for my Diwali parties? How old am I?
Bombarded on all sides by numbers, I feel cornered. Why can’t I simply slide into the last quarter of the year without tracking metrics? Is it too much to ask?
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Measuring worth versus tracking metrics
In More to That, a newsletter I subscribe to, I came across the concept of ‘metric-less success.’ The premise is that success stories celebrated in the media and generally accepted as something everyone should aspire to, are about people who have done extremely well – millions of dollars of profit, thousands of followers on social media, and so on.
Given the unquestionably quantifiable measures of success mentioned in these features, it seems natural that as humans we try to emulate these individuals since society has deemed these achievements as being worthy of recognition.
But is that all there is to life?
The article went on to explain that outward success, usually expressed in quantitative terms, is the kind that engenders respect. And if that is what we seek, that’s the path we should follow. However, if at the end of your life, you want to look back and say that you were loved, the numbers are of no use. What you represent and the difference your presence makes to another individual does not need to be counted and tracked. Because the inherent value lies in the intangible, not necessarily the measurable part of the relationship.
As Maya Angelou famously observed, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
What does it mean to a regular person?
I am not immune to the lure of tracking my actions and tallying up my achievements in both professional and personal aspects of my life. Every year I invite close to 100 people into my home in October and November, based on the dates of the two main festivals – Navratri and Diwali.
The former involves a gathering of primarily Indian women, to celebrate the divine feminine through prayers, chanting, and catching up with friends, who are integral to my life in Singapore. The latter involves inviting our friends and colleagues who are not from India for a Diwali dinner at home followed by an outdoor portion with sparklers and other fireworks, an event that children look forward to.
I simultaneously look forward to and dread these gatherings, yet I know that these social events become cherished memories as job changes and shifting family priorities rearrange the fabric of our lives in response to the changing tides of life. Yet, the excessive social stimulation from hosting and attending various social events in a short span of time overwhelms me and I find myself longing for silence and solitude in the weeks following the festivities.
Keeping it small
This year I gave in to the strong urge to scale back, if not take a break from these annual events. Just as quitting any habit cold turkey is not easy, I felt compelled to hold on to some semblance of the previous years but decided to recalibrate my energies by rethinking how to host a celebration without depleting my limited social battery.
For Navratri, I accepted invitations that were located close to my home, thereby saving the time and energy spent in traffic. I applied the same rule to the one evening that I hosted the Navratri gathering at my place. On a weeknight when I knew everyone had only a short window of time to socialize, I invited a handful of friends who lived in my condo or close by.
Unlike previous years when I chose weekends to enable more people to join and found myself unable to engage meaningfully with my guests as I flitted around ensuring everyone was introduced, fed, and engaged, this time I could sit and truly connect with these women who had been extremely supportive when I first moved in more than a decade ago. We chanted in unison, sang devotional songs by turns, enjoyed a few snacks, and shared a lot of laughs.
The small size enhanced the intimacy of the setting and led to a wonderfully satisfactory outcome. At the end of the evening, I was energized, not exhausted.
Why had I not done this more often? Was I chasing numbers instead of closeness?
I was reminded of one of the most influential paragraphs from the newsletter –
“Traditional success will get you on magazine covers, but metric-less success will get you on family albums. While society as a whole worships quantifiable success, what will ultimately matter most to the individual is everything that can’t be counted.”
Quality over quantity
The number of countries I have visited currently stands at above 30. I don’t think this number is an achievement. When I think about my travels, what makes me smile are the unique experiences in the places I have visited – a glorious sunset, a shooting star on a dark night, a chance encounter with an interesting local person, a surprising buy at a farmer’s market, the laughs shared during a long road trip, a missed flight, an unexpected friendship.
Quality matters. Quality of our thoughts. Quality of the decisions we make every single day. Because we determine the quality of our life.
As Diwali approaches and it’s time for me to decide who to invite, what to wear, what to serve, and how to capture this festive season, I’m choosing to keep it small. Instead of chasing numbers, I prefer to savor the moments – to draw a rangoli with care, to prepare a meal with love, to smile a lot as I make circles with a glittering sparkler with a child. Because quality matters.
Happy Diwali!!
