Averages

There’s something beautiful about averages. Yes, they can be misleading (data can tell many different stories). But often, they contain a good bit of truth.

Want to know how far you can throw a ball? Throw ten, measure each, take the average.

How much do you weigh? Weigh yourself at 6:00 AM three times a week for a month or two. Take the average.

How often do you drink alcohol? How frequently do you exercise? What’s a typical night in tips? What’s the usual cost of lunch?

With any of these, we don’t need to toss out a guess. We just need to watch for a little while.

Sometimes the averages can teach us about ourselves. What we thought was x is actually x + 10. What we would have guessed is y is actually 50 percent of y.

We might even find ourselves arguing with the data. But that, too, is a good lesson.