Years ago, my family and I lived in Mexico, serving as missionaries. Before one trip to a big amusement park in Mexico City, someone checked the online reviews and reported back, a little concerned: “It’s only rated 3 out of 5 stars.”

Here is what I learned living there: Mexicans would rate that same park 5 out of 5 almost every time — even if half the bathrooms didn’t work. Because the rating was never about the park.

Two ways of measuring a day

Mexican culture, as I experienced it, is friendship-centered. People-centered. If a car breaks down on the side of the road, frustration stays small if the people in the car enjoy each other. The day is measured by who you were with.

American culture tends to be event-centered. We rate the experience: the ride, the food, the cleanliness of the streets, whether the thing we paid for delivered. One of the blessings of American life is having the means to do “stuff” — boats, trips, attractions. But the rating system quietly trains us to measure our days by the quality of the events instead of the depth of the company.

When students from Mexico visited the States, I’d ask what they loved most. The answers were always events — the boating, the activities. I’m convinced that if American teenagers spent a month in Mexico, their answer would be different: “I loved the people.”

Twelve tacos

Our family once made a list of twelve tacos we had never tried and worked through them one Tuesday at a time — including, yes, cow brain. But the tacos were never the point. The point was the table. The laughter. The people we were becoming friends with in a place far from everything familiar.

I think about this now in medicine, too. A visit can check every clinical box and still miss the person. Or it can happen at a kitchen table, unhurried, and be worth five stars to someone — not because of what was done, but because of who showed up and how.

So here’s the question I’d rather you wrestle with than take from me: what are you actually rating? When you replay your week, are you scoring the events — or the people you shared them with? One of those scales will leave you chasing. The other will leave you full.

— Reggie