La Bene Vita

Humility

Sometimes I don't have any.

See, I've been paying close attention to Klout, as of late. At first, I was like, check it out, I have a number. Some people have lower numbers, some have higher numbers. Most of those people weren't real people in my mind; they were just avatars. So it didn't bother me to compare myself to mostly-anonymous competitors. The few people I did know had fairly comparable scores, +/- a point or two.

However, my score has been climbing. Klout lately compares me to people I actually know, clarifying whom I influence and who influences me, and by how much. Most are local people like customers and church family, and some of the comparisons are big. That feels weird, like a popularity contest... a popularity contest I got hungry to win.

Today, Keith and I rode on the motorcycle for awhile. Riding with Keith is always pleasant: beautiful, sunshiny day, nice boy in my arms, dreaming about one day owning some wooded land with a babbling brook and a big, pretty house. We talk a little, but most of the time we just enjoy it. In the quiet of the countryside, I got to thinking about that stupid Klout score, and how some random website somewhere in the world wide web decided that I'm better than Jane Doe, and that Joe Blow is better than I, primarily based on the number of Facebook friends and retweets I can claim. It bugged me.

Humility is a rare emotion for me. But, lately... something's changed. Don't get me wrong; I don't mind comparing my business with other businesses. I live in a capitalist country, after all. But Klout compares people, not businesses. I'm not sure why that is such a problem with me. Who wouldn't want to strive to be quantitatively better than everyone else they know??

WTH? I think I just got philosophical. My most humble apologies.