We’ve decided to sort ourselves by education – the idea is that being educated is the most important thing in life and that if you fail at that, it’s your fault. It’s not just that we have a system that rewards education, it’s that we have a very narrow definition of what being smart is. The problem with defining success like this is that, though it’s easy to measure how much education or money someone has, it’s very hard to measure the value of being a good parent or of deciding to stay in your hometown and to spend your life contributing to it. With a meritocratic mindset, when we fail to find things we can put numbers on, we tend to overlook their value.

Did you get a seat in the front or back row? The test is: How do you view McDonald’s?