Baby, What's Your Number?

It's a new year. To me, at least since I was 16, that has meant "the tax year is finished!" Ever since I've had income of my own, I've been excited to do my taxes and get my refund. I anxiously await my W-2s and 1099-INTs, and then I use TurboTax to file the very same day that the last piece of documentation arrives. I realize that's weird (it was especially weird when I was 17), I promise. But I like plugging in some numbers and following some instructions and getting some other numbers and then calculating some more and then getting a final number. An important number.

But one thing that thinking about my taxes and AGIs, marginal rates, personal deductions, and a host of other numbers got me pondering was: what is someone's most important number?

I came up with a list of possibilities:

• Age/birthday - lots of people are insecure about being too old or too young. Others are really into astrology or other numerology that depends upon their birth date.
  
• Phone - it's how we stay in touch, and now that you can keep your number seemingly forever, it can be a sort of ID number.
  
• Wealth/income/adjusted gross income/taxable income - here's where the tax obsession comes in. :) How much money you make (or have accessible to you) can be hugely important to the opportunities you have available, and some people think different levels of wealth can make you more or less happy.
  
• Academic measures, like LSAT/MCAT/SAT/DAT score and GPA - this seems to be a favorite (even if taboo) topic of students in their early-mid 20s. Two little numbers can have a *huge* impact on the list of schools to which you're admitted.
  
• IQ - not that many people even know their "official" IQ as measured by a trained psychologist, but where you fall on the bell curve has been linked to so many life outcomes that it seems pretty powerful.
  
• Sexual partners - not often talked about except among close friends (with the recent notable exception of the cast of The Real World - DC, where this was dinner convo #1 on the first day they were in the District....what?!?), but for some it's a source of shame/pride/whatever.
  
• Zip code/address - certain streets and neighborhoods can carry some level of social cache, while living in other locales can get you some street cred ("You lived in Baltimore?!?! Like on The Wire?!? Damn.")
  
• Children - whether you have them, when you have them, and how many you have is "the single most important decision you'll ever make," my mattress salesman told me, back in June 2007.
  
• Spouses - this is the "second most important decision," according to my mattress salesman. I assume he was talking about who, not how many, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. [For the curious, "your mattress" is "the fifth most important decision," according to my mattress salesman, after the aforementioned plus "your vocation" and "your neighborhood."]
  
• Facebook friends/followers on Twitter - social media grows and we have a set of new ways to mark how popular you are. [You should follow us!]
  
• Hotness - assume the basic 1-to-1o scale.
  
• Height/weight/eyesight/bra size/etc. - some of these things you can change, some of them you can't, but most are pretty obvious to anyone who runs into you, and they can be a big part of a first impression whether you like it or not.
  
• Cholesterol/blood count/blood sugar - less obvious to the naked eye, but pretty important to your overall well-being, especially as you get older.
  
• Frequent flyer or other status program miles - really only on the list because I happened to be on an airplane as I was concocting this list, but being an American Airlines AAdvantage Gold status member has made my life markedly easier this year. (Free checked bags! Free access to exit row seats!)
  
• Credit card, student, or other debt load - the flip side to the income/wealth bullet. Even people who have great jobs can be crippled by debt. Ask people with adjustable-rate mortgages from the early 2000s.
  
• Social security number - pretty basic, but fundamental to your identity, or lack thereof, if it's stolen. Similarly, consider bank account numbers, etc.
  

A lot of these things I think increase and decrease in importance as we grow and age and enter different life stages. Some of them retain importance only because they enable choices that affect later stages. Others (like SAT score) we might forget completely as time goes on. What do you think? What's most important? Is there anything I'm missing?