Don’t Quantify the Qualitative

There are people who pass through our lives briefly, yet leave marks that time never erases. I briefly mentioned him in last week’s article, but his story deserves its own telling.

He was a teacher named Richard Hunter, though to nearly everyone at Bryanston School in Dorset, England, he was simply known as “Bunty.”

I arrived at boarding school at the age of ten. To some boys it may have been an adventure, but for others, including me, it could feel lonely, intimidating, and emotionally overwhelming. The environment was not one that naturally nurtured vulnerability. You learned quickly to hide weakness, suppress fear, and simply endure.

Yet within that world there are sometimes individuals who quietly change everything.

Many years later, long after leaving school, I found myself writing Bunty a letter. By then he had already passed away. What surprised me was not that I still remembered him, but how deeply his influence had stayed with me across the decades.

“It’s the memories of 25 years ago that finds me writing this letter,” I began.

As I wrote, memories returned of a frightened teenager struggling to find confidence and direction. One passage captured what I had never fully expressed while he was alive:

“You took me under your wings without judging my weaknesses but pulling on my strength.”

At a time when I often saw only my shortcomings, Bunty saw something else. He offered encouragement without fanfare, guidance without judgment, and kindness without expectation of recognition.

Reading the memorial service written after his death helped me understand that my experience was not unique. Others saw the same qualities I had seen.

He was described as patient, modest, compassionate, and deeply human. One passage spoke of his willingness to share in the “difficulties, frustrations and sadnesses” of his students. Another described his belief that life could not be measured by material success, status, or outward achievement.

“Don’t try to quantify the qualitative,” he often said.

That line has stayed with me.

So much of life encourages us to measure ourselves by numbers: income, achievements, titles, possessions, net worth, and accolades.

Yet some of the most important forces in our lives cannot be measured at all.

How do you quantify the confidence restored by a few words of encouragement? How do you measure the impact of someone who helps a struggling child believe in himself again? What value do you place on compassion shown at exactly the moment it is needed most?

I doubt Bunty ever realized how many lives he shaped in small, almost invisible ways. Perhaps that is the nature of true influence. It rarely announces itself at the time. Only years later do we recognize its significance.

Toward the end of my letter, I wrote: “I wish now you could see what I have become.”

Those words were never about accomplishments. They were about gratitude.

Like many people, I have stumbled along the way. I have experienced failures, disappointments, and moments of self-doubt. But I have also built a career, raised a family, and lived a life that younger versions of myself might never have imagined.

Part of that journey was made possible because one teacher saw strengths that I could not yet see in myself.

Richard Hunter passed away only months after I left school, losing a battle with cancer that he fought with remarkable courage. In the last letter I received from him, he wrote, “I keep fighting this damn disease.” Decades later, those words still resonate with me. They speak not only of his struggle, but of the lesson he left behind. Life would bring disappointments, setbacks, and moments of self-doubt, but whenever they came, I did my best to follow Bunty’s example and simply keep fighting.

Looking back now, my memories of boarding school are no longer defined solely by hardship. They are also defined by gratitude for the rare individuals whose kindness can alter the direction of another person’s life without ever asking for recognition in return.

Perhaps that is why I am writing this today. Not because Bunty needs to know, but because I do.

And perhaps that is the real measure of a life well lived: not what we accumulate, but what we leave behind in other people.

Richard Hunter
: March 1926 – December 1977