We make financial decisions, plan political campaigns, organise programs, advertise products, and calibrate tools using assessments by averages. From mechanics, to finances, and psychological evaluations we use statistical averages in everything. It is not 100% exact and it even sometimes fails us, but we make very important, sometime life and death decisions by it.
It is all true and helps us come to workable solutions of problems when it comes to mechanics, economics, and crowd behavior, but what about the common person, the individual? These days I have been thinking of people that I know, or rather knew because I haven’t seen them in a very long time. I am here now with them for a short period of time and I feel I can assess things about them but do I really know them enough to allow myself opinions? One may say that time and distance may cloud our judgment in knowing a person, but so does proximity. Looking at a person from afar we may see only a blur not only of their faults but also of their potential. Looking at them too closely concentrates our attention on details void of the perspective that gives them truth and purpose. We are therefore left with the old adage that truth is found in the medium of two extremes. Not too far, not too close; not too long, not too short; that is the perspective that can give us not the perfect but the best our imperfect dimension affords. Like with anything else, our best judgment comes from an average between two extremes. As I am writing this, I am reminded that I wrote something similar in the chaplain newsletter called: THE BALANCE OF THINGS, a good reminder before many of us gather together with family for the Holidays.
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