How Much
Are you? is a switch. How much are you? is a dial. One has an answer. The other one is true.
Short answer
Are you? gets a yes and stops. How much are you? is the true question and has no number attached. But you already read dials with nothing written on them, hungry to famished, tired to exhausted, because your body does the comparing. Nothing does that for compassion or patience. The dial only answers if you do the comparing yourself, against something.
Key takeaways
- —Are you? is a switch. It lets you pick the version of yourself closest to zero and still call it on.
- —How much are you? has no number and no unit. You've never been a seven at anything.
- —You already read numberless dials every day. Hungry to famished. Tired to exhausted. Your body does the comparing.
- —Nothing does the comparing for compassion or patience. The dial only answers if you supply the second thing yourself.
They ask if you're compassionate. If you're a leader. If you're patient.
You say yes.
You always say yes.
Because the question is a switch. On or off. And a switch lets you pick the version of yourself standing closest to zero and still call it on.
Nobody is fully anything.
You don't have patience or not have it. You don't lead or not lead. You don't care or not care. Every word we use like a switch is really a dial, and almost everyone is living somewhere in the middle of it without ever checking where the needle sits.
So change the question.
Not are you. How much are you.
And here's where it gets hard.
Because there is no number for it. No unit. Nothing to count. You can't be a seven. Nobody has ever been a seven.
But you already know how to read a dial with nothing written on it.
You're hungry. Then you're famished. You're tired. Then you're exhausted. Nobody handed you a scale for that. Nobody had to. You know exactly where you are on it, and you know it without a single number, because your body does the comparing for you.
That's the whole trick. And it's the part that's missing.
Hunger tells you where you are. Compassion doesn't. Patience doesn't. There's no body attached to how much of a leader you are. Nothing volunteers the reading.
So people go back to the switch. Not because they're hiding...
They go back because the switch is the only version that answers itself.
The dial only answers if you do the comparing. More than I was. Less than she is. Enough that it cost me something.
How much are you, and next to what?