Mathematically DISinclined

If you know me… Even just a little bit, you know just how terrible I am at maths.

Maths and I aren’t even on the same plane of life. I see numbers and my brain freezes. It’s the one ‘language’ I have failed to master.

And I’m quite at home in the knowledge of that.

But tonight, my mind ran on maths!

*Pausing for everyone to experience this existential crisis as well*

I know!

But I thought of it from a different standpoint.

See, maths is pretty straightforward. There’s a problem and then you work your way to the solution and voilà. If you’ve done it correctly, the answer will be correct. If a mistake is made, the answer, most likely, will be wrong.

But upon reflection tonight, I realised that we are answers.

Yes, I know this is a confusing statement. But hear [see?] me out.

People see us (and vice versa) and we judge based on what is seen. All we have to evaluate is the answer. Most people have not been there through our workings. They’ve not seen the steps we’ve taken to get to this point. And it’s the workings stage that is most frustrating.

[Although maths on a whole is frustrating to me eh.]

The workings stage is where you meet your dead ends, having to scrap what you’ve done and start over. It’s where mistakes are made and remedied if caught in time. It’s where the majority of effort goes.

But who’s there to witness this?

Not many people; if any at all.

And so when we present the ‘answer’ version of ourselves, that’s all there is to the eye.

Of course, the workings won’t always be right but the important thing is we can always go back and work it out. [Too punny?]

So, don’t let people’s words and assessments [no pun intended but it works so well!] weigh too heavily on you. They only ever see the answer. Remember the workings you’ve done and all the steps you’ve taken to get there.

You can believe in you, because you’ve seen the entire process.

And if you’re anything like me with maths, you’ll get it wrong… Numerous times. And that’s okay too. As long as you keep trying to figure it out.

In the same way, we can’t just judge people on what we see. Most times, we don’t have all the information. We’ve not seen their workings either. We should learn to extend just a little more grace to one another.

Cuz in the maths of life, the answer isn’t the only thing that matters.