We Have the Ability to Change Anything

This was our thirty-third week in our fifty week calligraphy challenge, the prompt was ‘by the numbers’. Anything to do with numbers, about numbers or inspired by numbers. I thought about significant numbers in my life then opted to find a quote about numbers. This one hit me head on so I used a stamp I made to create the background using gel printing techniques, then wrote the quote in metallic and gel inks.

Numbers don’t lie. So true. No matter how we might want to fudge them, spin them or even interpret them to make things look better, numbers don’t lie. Be it our checking account balance, the total of our savings or even how much we actually spend on take out, the numbers tell the truth even if it is not a truth we want to hear. Knowing the numbers, facing the numbers and understanding how to change the numbers makes life a challenge.

We have so many numbers in our lives – social security numbers, ages, dates, times, financial totals, giving goals, number of family members, cholesterol levels, even our addresses contain numbers. Handling our lives means handling our numbers. It means having the tough and uncomfortable conversations about the good, the bad and the ugly numbers. It means facing up to what our numbers tell us and how we want to behave, decide and live our lives to support, change or leave those numbers alone.

When we are being honest with ourselves we know that we control the numbers, the actual number is purely a reporting tool. It tells us where we stand. No judgements, simply the facts. Facing the facts means first not lying to ourselves let alone to those who are impacted by our numbers. We need to be accountable for all our numbers, keeping them solid and healthy even if that means that it is time to make a change. We make decisions every day that push our cholesterol numbers up or down, our savings grows or diminishes or we change where we live which changes our numbers. It is our decisions and actions that determine our numbers. Right or wrong we have the ability to change anything if we are simply wiling to face the facts, know our numbers and are willing to do the work.