The other day I told Lala that apparently I wanted to empathize with her more, and therefore pulled something in my back out of sympathy with her own recent pulled back.
Her response: “That was painful and dumb.”
She then went on to assure me that she was kidding, and she hoped that I felt better faster than she had, but with a lead up like that, I had NO problem telling her that, “Put that way, I hope I do too!”
Oh, and to assuage any fears out there, while it’s unusual for the water level to get so high around here, it’s not unheard of, and the trees have endured worse than this.
Today (since it’s not raining at the moment), I thought I’d show you what I was talking about:
I don’t usually talk about the weather unless it involves hurricane level storms or the like, but lately it’s rained here so much that it looks like the trees in my backyard have been doing a slow, dignified suicide march into the water.
Self-improvement is a wonderful thing to keep to yourself.
Possibility is not probability.
In other words, just because something can happen, that doesn’t mean it will. A “million to one shot” literally means something so unlikely that you could, on average, attempt it one million times, and only succeed once. Yes, that “on average” part is important, and I have indeed seen some wildly improbable things come to pass. Never the less, understanding that it’s possible you could succeed on your first try, or still be struggling after two million (or more) attempts will go a long way in helping you make good decisions . . . or at least help you keep your bad decisions in proper prospective.
Understanding this is super-important to me for . . . reasons I have already mentioned.
Correlation is not causation.
In other words, just because two things occurred at the same time, that does not necessarily mean that one caused the other, or even that they are related at all. My favorite example of this is while there is a strong correlation between foot growth and intellectual development in children, this doesn’t mean we keep the source of our intellect in our feet, and there are many, many other fine examples.
Correlation may indicate a relationship, but don’t take it for granted. I’ve heard tell of a professor who would put a light switch behind a screen so you couldn’t see if he was flipping the switch or not with his concealed hand, then he would raise his other arm in the air and the lights would go on and off as he moved his arm. He would then point out the strong correlation between his arm raising and lowering and the lights going on and off.
(Naturally, when asked to move away from the screen and the switch, the lights continued to go on and off with the raise of his arm because he had a hidden assistent turning the lights on and off at the professor’s signal.)
Correlation is not causation.
Possibility is not probability.
“Do you know where Miss Eat-n-arf is?” my son asked earlier today, thus revealing to me the secret identity of Social Distancing Dog.
I’m honestly not sure if this counts as cynicism or not, but recently I’ve come to understand just how deeply some people need “a bad guy” to blame things on. I mean, I’ve always understood how easy it can be to give in to the temptation to blame someone or something else for your problems, but what I’m seeing lately is taking things to a whole new level. In the absence of a clear “bad guy,” people are desperately flailing about trying to find one, frequently changing targets at a dizzying pace, and I think their fear is if they don’t find one, they’ll be the ones that someone else will pick to be the “bad guy.”
Candles & Curses 