Life lessons - counting blessings

I came across my "autograph book" last week. It is a small 3" X 5" book with pages bearing a flowery design. This is a book which bears messages from my friends in Class X at my all-girls school in Mumbai. The messages are mostly mushy, some corny and unabashedly sentimental. They talk about friendship and togetherness, memories and motivation. Some teachers have written in it too. The "khadoos" nun who taught mathematics was also the principal of the school. Her words to me were "the greatest mathematics to master in life is the one that enables us to count our blessings." At that time I remember thinking "how typical, she writes about math even in this book."

But today I see the meaning behind those words. As humans we like to keep score, no matter how poorly we fare in mathematics in school. We are constantly tallying what others have, how much they make, how many bedrooms in their mansion, what make are the cars in the neighbors garage, whether their kids got into IIT, where was the holiday destination of relatives. We talk of ROIs and EMIs. We calculate mileage for the car, square footage price for the house and percentage of raise for the salary. We estimate run rate to ensure victory in cricket matches. We watch the SENSEX graph slide down and gold prices skyrocket. Even the most pathetic math student does quite well in real life. We truly master practical math, not the stuff taught from textbooks in school.

How often do we apply the same approach to the other stuff in our life? When would you value health? Not until you lose. How would you quantify your wealth? In terms of having much more than you can imagine or always having what you need available to you. How do you classify friends? Can you calculate a happiness quotient? Can we put a number for satisfaction? Freedom? But are these not valuable? Perhaps not amenable to mathematical manipulation but important indicators of quality of life. Not everything in life is measurable and quantifiable. Items that fall in this category are blessings. If we learn to count the blessings, we master spiritual mathematics. I don't know where my math teacher is today, but I thank her for covering topics other than the exam portion and for opening my mind to subjects other than what was prescribed by the syllabus.