The Measure of a Person

In history we read about the same three people as if they are the only ones who make the world the way it is, but that makes it seem as if everyone else’s contribution is insignificant. I do not think that is the right way for us to view the value of life. It is also a dangerous way to think: if we elevate one person above another– whether it is Harry Styles or Donald Trump– we can fall into the trap of not only overvaluing one person but also undervaluing everyone else who walks this earth with us.

If I think about myself and my life in terms of statistical probability, my personal experience can feel like an accident of fate only. Let us consider the facts:

• Number of babies born in China in 2005: approximately 130,865,670
• Number of babies adopted from China to the US in 2005: 4,855
• Percent of babies adopted from China with elevated lead levels in bloodstream: 14%
• Percent of babies with elevated lead levels with learning delays: significant
• Percent of girls diagnosed with ADHD per year in the US: 6%

Viewed this way, I am just one of billions born in a certain country or hundreds of thousands with the same diagnosis. But none of those identities will tell you who I truly am. These numbers do not tell you that I earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do when I was in third grade, that I have been drumming with Drums of Thunder around New York City and Philadelphia since fifth grade, or that I keep my hands busy with woodworking, rock climbing, ukulele, guitar, and drawing while I ponder the meaning of life.

Statistics do not tell you what matters to me and what I am proud of. They do not tell you that I felt like a success when I started a new school in sixth grade and made friends the first day. That would never register on any chart of success measuring money or grades or status, but it made all the difference in my life. No one can measure what it meant that I was secure enough to come out as queer in eighth grade at a time when most kids do not have that comfort or confidence in themselves. Numbers will not tell you that when I aced a presentation in class, I texted all my friends, because staying calm while public speaking was a much bigger accomplishment to me than all the A’s I earned in high school.

We cannot measure these things the way we measure the number of tickets Billie Eilish sold in concert last year or the number of babies born in China the year I was born. Instead, what I see is that the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts in a way that we cannot quantify. What matters more to me than numbers are the little stories people tell me, like how a friend discovered the tooth fairy was not real. No matter how many stories I hear, I want more, because it is the combination of every experience that makes a person unique, not their grade point average or height or net worth.