What's In a Number?

I woke up this morning at 2:48am.  Egads, I know!  Over my lifetime, some of my most inspired moments came to me upon waking up as if I had been pondering them while sleeping and now it was time to act.  Well, here I go once again!

Numbers … they are everywhere!  We grow up being faced with so many numbers. After we are born, we are told that by a certain age, we should be doing certain things – walking, potty-training, running, losing baby teeth, and certain skills to prepare us for entry into school.  Once in school, we are graded by numbers that rate us on how intelligent we are compared to other students our own age and our learning capabilities.  When you decide on going to college, the same thing happens.  Then you go to work and you are evaluated on a rating system that oft times doesn’t have anything to do with how well you did or how hard you worked, but how well the company profited that year overall.  Then, over time, you are ranked by how much money you make, how much your house costs or whether you live on a canal versus living in a trailer park.  Even on the social networks, you are ranked by how many friends you have.  There are preconceived numbers everywhere that judge how well you do, how pretty you are, how much you weigh, your dress size or your waist size, how far you can run/walk/ride, etc.  We are surrounded by numbers.  It’s maddening how numbers can attempt to define who we are if we let them.  I have been guilty of that.  Thankfully, valuing myself by a series of numbers is a thing of the past for me.  They don’t reflect my self-worth and it shouldn’t for you either, after all, how do you equate how big a heart you have … can’t put a number on that.  Yes, numbers they are everywhere!

I was once told years ago after my Father died and he sent us a message with the number 248 in it and the idea that each time that number came up, it was his way of saying he was with me, which I found very comforting.  Then one day I came across an advertisement on Facebook to see what your “life number” was and it was FREE.  So what the heck, I tried it.  Turns out my life number is 9!  It seems all you have to do is add up your birthdate numbers … mine is 6-15-1950. Which, when added together equals 9!  Whew!  At first I thought to myself, thank goodness it didn’t stop at 6.6.6!  Nine, I can live with that.  I began to think of all the scenarios that the number 9 had come up in my life.  Old home addresses … no that wasn’t it, except for when I lived at 234 … that equaled 9.  That was a memorable time of my life for many reasons – good and bad.  All the other addresses added up to something else.  Then I thought about the years that I had life-changing events – 1970, 1973, 1975, 1980, 1983, 1994, 2008, 2010, 2012 and of course, 2014 – the only one that added up to this new life number was 1980, which was the year my Father died!  Well, I found that was kind of interesting.  So what do I do with this new found number?  I’m not quite sure, but maybe I’ll play the Lotto and see if that works for me!