Resigning from the Demographic

My life is finally beginning to come together and increasingly I look forward to jumping feet first into each new day, instead of dreading when the other shoe will drop. Up to now, I did not have the time or the inclination to notice one of the down sides of living in this number-driven world... a world in which the ubiquitous computer begins to heavily influence the context and direction of our lives.

On the most superficial level, more and more I am just a number to the world. I am my social security number. I am my employee number. I am the account number on my Visa card. When I call into Visa, the first thing they want to know is my account number. My name merely becomes an alias so everyone else will know who I am.

I have looked at this situation and have examined another aspect of this phenomena. Retailers and ad guys see me as part of the demographic group of white, males between the age of 50 and 65 years of age. So does the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Those faceless and anonymous economists who assess the state of our financial situation see me in just the same way. To all of them I am just one of the numbers crunched so that they can sell me something, get me to vote for their candidates or make some projections as to whether the price of pork bellies will rise or fall.

You know what? Now that I have given some serious thought to this fact, my blood is beginning to boil just a little. I am not a statistic. I am a person who has a life, who has ambitions and aspirations, who has real relationships to the people I love. My life cannot be reduced to being part of the aggregate who will or won't buy a Honda or who will or won't vote for some clueless, but well-packaged candidate for the Presidency of the United States. Although I may be only one American among now 300,000,000 Americans, I want to be addressed by my name, rather than some randomly selected number which has been assigned to me.

That said, how I feel about this subject and $3.00 will get me a latte at Starbucks. I know that nothing I could do or say will change things. Most things in our world are being reduced to formats which can be input into a computer or scanned at the check-out counter. Barring some extraordinary developments, that is the direction our world is going to take.

However, I don't have to like the way things are. But even if I can't change the world, I can change the way I live my life. Rather than being overly concerned about how others see me, I am redefining how I see myself and how I establish priorities for myself. I am especially focusing on the important relationships in my life. I am doing whatever it takes to sustain and enrich my relationship with my wife and my kids and my granddaughter, Parker. I am working hard to make time for my close friends. I am redefining my relationship with myself, sometimes being more demanding of myself and yet also being kinder to myself and more forgiving than I have been in the past. Like I said, I don't have to like this particular reality of our world. Neither do I have to let this get in the way of my living a life rich in loving and being loved and in accomplishing goals which are meaningful and important to me.