Take Off Your Cash Goggles

Twenty years ago this week, the United Nations released the Human Development Report for the first time.

Don’t be put off by the fancy schmancy title. It’s just a report on how earth’s humans are doing.

I only mention it because the way the report came about, 20 years ago, marked a landmark shift in how progress is measured.

Prior to 1990, most studies measured countries’ progress by economic benchmarks. Nations who made money were of course considered the cream of the crop. And nations who didn’t turn a profit were considered the worst places to live.

But the Human Development Report insisted the ultimate goal of development–even on the national and global scale–shouldn’t be cold hard cash.  The aim of development, it maintained, should be more significant…like improving people’s lives.

So they took off their cash-goggles and stopped declaring winners and losers based on dollars and cents.

Instead, they developed a “Human Development Index” that measured a country’s well being based on things like enlarging people’s choices, expanding political freedoms and extending human rights.

When you measure success by people’s ability to pursue their dreams or to be treated well, you find impressive success in some surprising places (places whose economies would make the developed world turn up its nose).

In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, life expectancy has risen by eight years since 1970. And the amount of kids going to school has more than doubled in that same amount of time.

Other unexpected movers and shakers include Laos, Nepal, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia whose growth in health care and education are unmatched.

This has implications for you and me too of course.

After all, if this logic works on a global scale, consider what this insight from the United Nations might mean for you: Sometimes to see progress, you have to take off your cash-goggles.

Maybe you’re getting along just fine, economically. But maybe like a lot of people living through this recession, you’re hurting.

Before you deem yourself as “falling short,” before you throw your life into chasing a herd of cash cows, consider your answer to these three questions:

1. Are you pursuing your dreams?
2. Are you learning?
3. Are you well?

You may be more of an impressive success story than you think.

The sum total of a human life should be more than a glorified financial transaction. It should result in a story of growth about the development of ourselves and others.