Putting issues on a scale has brought me much perspective in life. I have been able to see what is important and what is not important. I have been able to see when to act, react, and instigate. I have not always done a great job at analyzing life on this scale. I have been trying…that is pretty much the same right!? Not so much.

But the moments in my life I have put things into perspective for myself have made an immense difference when I was over or under acting in a situation.

For instance, when I start to look at life through a scale of 1 to 10, I can see the valuable moments versus the valueless moments. When I am upset about something and I throw it on this scale, I can see how upset I should really be. Are my actions truly to scale of the situation. Am I about to flip a table at a restaurant because I have not had my iced tea refilled in the last ten minutes?

Am I totally downplaying the importance of family and ignoring my wife in order to watch another episode of Hell on Wheels?

Usually when I get this scale out of whack it is because I am out of whack. When I see myself react to situations out of proportion, I know something else is wrong. Something else is misaligned in my life. Usually whatever I am under or overreacting about is not the real issue, there is something else behind the issue for me. However, using this metric I am able to see how I should be acting and reacting to situations.

How do you tell whether or not you have a piston misfiring? How often do you overreact or under react to situations? How would your actions & reactions change if you put everything into a relative scale of 1 to 10?

Scaling,

–JT

The world is huge! More or less, the size of earth is mind boggling to me. Comprehending the size, for me, is pretty ridiculous. I can put it in scales and references; but generally, I have no clue how large the world is. The implication of the size of the world becomes so much more impactful when I interpret my value as a fraction of the world’s total value.

Using this scale helps me center myself on what is actually important. I can easily get carried away from the tiniest details of what I am doing or what really matters. When I scale my bad situations in reference to the number of other people in the world, I become comforted. I start to see how important I should actually consider myself.

When I loose reference for my scale and importance, everything starts to revolve around me. I start to think everything either works for me or against me. When the truth is, the world turns and I am not all important at the center of it.

The world turns with or without me.

The world is made up of many parts working together for the good of others.

The world does not turn for the good of me.

I am not the entire enchilada.

I am an ingredient of the recipe.

I am a player on the field.

I am a portion of the whole.

My wants and needs are not more important or greater than my neighbors.

How are you doing at keeping your own importance in proportion to the rest of the world?

Calibrating the scale,

–JT