” Numbers are facts!”

” Truth lies in the numbers! “

Well…

One year ago, I would have fallen for this. Not anymore.

Just like anything else, numbers are narratives.

Here’s an incident that made me realize this:

Recently, I was speaking to a freelancer who makes 75 $ per hour. Let’s call him Mr X.

X was supposed to be travelling the next day and was booking flight tickets. For the past 30 minutes, he was looking for a coupon code that would allow him 20$ off.

” You know Ronit, no matter how rich I get, I will always value money. I try to save as much as I can”, he said.

I asked him, ” What do you enjoy more, freelancing or finding coupon codes?”

“Of course, freelancing. I love my job over anything else.”

“What if I proved to you, using the same numbers, that you wasted both your money and time?”

Little annoyed, he said, “Sure go ahead.”

Here’s the thing:

Imagine X did not spend 30 minutes looking for a coupon code. Instead, he booked the tickets at full price and went back to work for 30 minutes.

As per his hourly rate, X would have made 37.5$. The coupon gave him 20$. Clearly, 17.5$ profit in the second case.

As he himself admitted, he enjoys freelancing more than finding coupon codes. There goes time as well.

Now, the point is not who is right or wrong. The point is that using the same numbers, the same amount of money and time, both of us created different stories. That is where numbers can be magical as well as dangerous.

Often, we already have our narratives set. We then use ‘statistics’, to support our narratives. This creates an echo chamber and is often self-serving.

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts- for support rather than for illumination.” – Andrew Lang

What if we used numbers to illuminate rather than support?

Easy to say, difficult to do. Realized this recently, while working with numbers.

What do you do to escape the trap of numbers?