The Balance Sheet

"Your qualities overshadow your weaknesses."
- Fortune from Thai fortune cookie

At the PTO meeting this morning we reviewed the financials and the budget for the coming year. At one point the treasurer showed us the Profit / Loss numbers even though, as a nonprofit, the PTO technically does not have profit or loss. That idea sparked a connection with the fortune that I opened at a Santa Fe Thai restaurant. To my driven logical mind, my (good) qualities narrowly overshadow my weaknesses, and I picture this as a PnL sheet, with the P barely overshadowing the L. As I look back it seems that I have measured my worth in this way for many years, struggling to prove my value and to find ways of valuation that could be quantitatively measured. This mindset nearly sunk me when I stopped working to take care of the kids, for as every parent knows, one cannot quantitatively measure value when it comes to raising children (or at least not for many years).

My college education cost my folks a LOT of money, and when I left consulting to begin a steady downturn in earnings, I began more and more to feel like a liability instead of an asset. This feeling increased over the past few years of my illness and rehabilitation; countless hours and dollars went into to my healing process and now, as an investment, I am so hopelessly in the red that a bailout is not even possible. Fortunately for my sanity, I realize that human beings are not "assets" or "liabilities." I see from raising my children that money spent on their health and well-being and happiness is not tracked or grudged. And I am beginning to see and dimly understand that the best things in life are not free, nor are they easily measured. Creativity, love, joy, friendship, support and understanding cannot be given a numerical value, and perhaps overshadow every weakness.