Keeping Score

Common wisdom seems to say that keeping score is a bad idea, but is it true? Is the running tally of successes and failures, who did what when lasts, betrayals and confidences learned behavior or something innate to humans? Or innate to certain people?

If you let everything go, then aren't you striving for a state in which you care less? Will this post be comprised entirely of questions? I suppose the idea is to care less about what isn't important.

Proponents of the no-score approach often state that you'll feel better and that the more open you are, the more you give, the more good will come to you. As a generality, I can buy that; it's the specifics (which by their nature must involve some discernment) that I take issue with.

Having no sense of score feels like it would entail accepting that some people will consistently fall short of what I want from them. Expectations can lead to dangerous territory, but within any relationship, they exist. There are no set definitions for all the various relationships a person can have though, and maybe that's the catch.

I could write more, but I'm fading. My thoughts are getting harder to articulate and do not seem to be rounding the bend towards resolution, so I'm going to call it a night. Sweet dreams.

One year ago at TTaT: The Gargle is On