Meaning beyond marks and careers

In many homes, the story of a life seems written in numbers: exam scores, ranks, salaries, appraisals. "How much did you get?" "Which college?" "What package?

- TDG NETWORK

Marks and careers matter. They shape options and pay bills. The problem begins when we confuse them with the whole of who we are — when a bad semester or job loss feels like a final verdict on our worth.

A spiritual lens invites us to slow down and ask different questions. Who am I if I put the report card and visiting card aside? What is my life for, beyond chasing the next grade or promotion?

Think of a child you love — a sibling, cousin, your own kid, or yourself at age seven. When you picture them, do you see their exam marks first? Or do you see their laugh, their stubbornness, their kindness, their odd little habits?

We instinctively know that a person is more than performance. Yet we forget this when we look at ourselves.

Most spiritual traditions hold that each person has an inherent dignity — as a soul, a child of God, a unique expression of life. That basic worth does not rise and fall with grades or market cycles. You did not “earn” the right to exist by scoring well; you simply are.

Remembering this doesn't make effort unimportant. It changes the energy with which we strive: from fear and desperation to dignity and responsibility.

We all carry labels: student, employee, parent, boss, artist, breadwinner. These roles are useful and real. They are also temporary. Students graduate, careers shift, children grow up, “secure” jobs vanish in restructurings.

If our entire identity is tied to one role — “topper,” “doctor,” “family success story” — we become fragile. Any crack in that role feels like collapse.

Spiritual wisdom points to a deeper identity: as awareness itself, as part of a larger whole, as a being capable of love, insight and growth. Even if those words feel abstract, you can sense a more stable “you” underneath: the one who has been present at every age and in every phase, watching the stories change.