No Such Thing As Average

Average is just a math equation, but in the real world nothing is ever actually average.  In my opinion it is usually feast or famine, high or low, big or small rarely right in the middle.  Take the weather we are having in Durham right now.  Rain, BIG Rain, certainly record setting rain for the day, which just happens to be 1.32 inches.  Gee, I think we got that much in the middle of the night and now it is raining buckets again and will for almost the rest of the day.  We might triple that record, but in the world of averages, will hardly move the average rainfall line at all.

Even though we are up something like nine inches of rainfall for the year compared to the average it is just balancing out the terrible drought we had a few years ago.  In the end when you average the two years together you keep the average rainfall about in the same place it was.

The same idea is true for me in trying to move the needle on the scale down.  If I eat roughly the same food everyday and work out about the same amount I seem to stay in the same place.  My average is what my body has become accustomed too and has learned to live on.  In order to make a dent in my average I have to change some things and keep changing them for a very long time.

I just can’t have one day of extra vigilant eating, but I have to have ten and even then the needle might only move a little.  That’s the reality of middle-aged-peri-menopausal-woman.  I have spent a lifetime of days that makes up my average.  To change the average might take the rest of my lifetime.

But of course no one wants to be average, even our own average.  We all want to be better than our regular selves, which is just plain hard to do, that is unless you put everything about yourself on the scale.  Some days you might have a bad day at working out, but a good day at eating, a great day at work, but a poor day at laundry, a fantastic day at parenting, but a so-so day at being a spouse.  You never have an average day at everything, but over time you create a set point for what you are going to be like in every aspect of your life.

The best we can hope for is that we are a little better at a little more today than we were yesterday and that way, given enough time your average will improve.  The key is not to throw in the towel on anything if you have one bad day, because a good day is coming that will balance it out, just like the rain, the drought year has been overcome by a wet year.