It Averages Out!

“Everything averages out in the long run!” Hmmmmmm......Does it?????

Franc Puskar’s team lost the finals of the 1954 Soccer World Cup. Roger Federer “finally” didn’t make it to the semi final of a Grand Slam. The Australian cricket team “expectantly” lost a match after winning a dozen matches continuously. What’s common between these situations? No prizes for guessing this one - it obviously is the “law of averages” propping it’s head up. Inevitably the law catches up with you!

Can we ever escape the law of averages? Certainly not! The chances are that the first mistake you make after a string of successes would be attributed to the law of averages. Can we avoid making mistakes? The answer’s an obvious no! We would make a mistake - the only things left to be determined are “when” and “in what frequency.”

So what does the term “law of averages” mean to us and how does it make us feel? First, it’s “a law” – and a law “is not questioned”:)!. What kind of words do we associate with the word average? – Mediocre! Not the best! How do we feel when someone calls us average? – certainly not great! All of us want to realize the “best” in ourselves :).

On one hand the law of averages seems to be inescapable while on the other hand there is this human need not to feel average. So what does one do?

One choice we have is to give up and do nothing – let us leave everything to fate; let us go with the tide; time is circular – anyways everything equals out in the long run; we rise from dust, and we go back to dust too.

The alternative choice we have is to pursue what we feel strongly about. What we have in our hands is the “here and now” and let us make an attempt to do the best we can in the “here and now”. What happens over the long run – let us see! We would periodically fail and for all we know things might anyways average out over the long run. But atleast we would have had the satisfaction of trying. Else we just might slip into a state of inaction.

It takes an unreasonable man to accomplish anything meaningful!

Let us try inspite of the law of averages and not not try because of it!

-
Sourav