Personal LGPA: 0
Total LGPA: 0
# Life GPA
They taught you to make number go up. They said that obedient kids get good
grades, that productive people get paid, that the wealthy are powerful and free
and attractive and happy.
But life doesn't always provide obvious numbers. You had GPA but graduated. You
had ELO but got a job. You had KPIs but took vacation. You had matches but got
married. You had salary but got laid off. You had citations but created a human.
You had BMI but got diagnosed. You had numbers but you changed.
They baked "number go up" into your traditions, beliefs, cultural norms, media,
milieu, etc. They programmed you to make number go up, and it's
difficult/dangerous to edit that stubborn firmware. People who venture beyond
their prescribed structures (e.g. school, work) often feel anxious and
worthless.
So maybe you need a number to strive, to thrive, to win. That's okay. You may
need that number to synthesize structure for what to do, how to live, who to
become.
LGPA is a number. When you are aimless and/or despondent, you can make this
number go up. It won't guarantee happiness, but it can incentivize some of its
correlates:
LGPA =
ln(♡) * log10($) * log[3/2](☺)
+ sum(lgpa(child[i]) / 4)
♡ = volunteer hours
$ = net worth
☺ = fitness percentile
Some non-obvious beliefs are encoded into LGPA:
- **Balanced:** The LGPA formula punishes
[min-maxing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powergaming), i.e. LGPA is zero if
fitness or wealth or volunteering are zero.
- **Curved:** In this formula, each variable adds diminishing returns, e.g.
growing $10K into $100K is as valuable as $10M into $100M.
- **Sharable:** Couples/families can use shared LGPA to strategize specialized
roles, e.g. LGPA(Alice+Bob) ≥ LGPA(Alice)+LGPA(Bob).
- **Domestic:** Many definitions of "success" are blind to domestic labor. Good
parents should feel like valuable contributors to society.
- **Independent:** Parents shouldn't fulfill dreams/goals through children. In
this formula, parents are incentivized to pursue personal growth.
- **Responsible:** Your life is not fungible. Spending money on charity cannot
be exchanged for spending time on charity.
- **Accomodating:** The definitions of "fitness" and "volunteering" are
purposefully vague enough to accomodate many worldviews/beliefs. Two
reasonable respective starting-points: _age-adjusted VO2-Max percentile_ and
_unprofitable hours spent on strangers_.
- **Economic:** This formula assumes that most dollars are earned via
positive-sum interactions. If true, net worth is a crude measure for the
amount of value one has created for other people. "Cumulative non-inherited
net worth" might be a more appropriate variable for LGPA.
They taught you to make number go up -- don't play by their rules. You needn't
feed your organs into a vending machine. You can pursue your own number; you can
use that number to synthesize structure.
One day, you might build your stable structure far from those institutions.
Revel in your success -- your health, your abundance, your compassion. With
enough distance, you'll forget you ever wanted to be a number.