The Law of Averages: How to use it to your advantage
The law of averages and how it applies to our lives.
I conducted an informal study to see if people’s perceptions of their lives mirror the reality.
If you took the survey, you would’ve noticed that I used a Likert scale (1-5) to determine thoughts and current perspective on the state of our lives.
If you didn’t take the survey, I first asked to rate overall satisfaction with life as a whole before asking more specific questions regarding the different aspects that make up our life.
The Scale of Life I provided, generally, went as follows:
- Very unhappy. Bleak present. Blurry future.
- More sad, irritable, and annoyed days than happy ones. Not much to be excited about.
- Completely neutral. Same amount of bad and good days.
- Very happy. Plenty of things to appreciate, to love, and to look forward to but there’s still things to be done to have the ideal life.
- Perfect. No complaints whatsoever.
Then I broke down the Aspects of life to the following:
- Social life (quality of conversations being shared, level of trust, and satisfaction with relationship shared with friends)
- Romantic life (if applicable, satisfaction with your partner, your relationship, how it is, and outlook for the future)
- Professional life (satisfaction with type of work doing, happiness with where you’re working, and the outlook of your future)
- Academic life (satisfaction with level of education attained, performance in classes, content being learned)
- Self (thoughts on your own mental, emotional, and physical well-being)
- Vision (with where you are now and what your ideal life is, how confident do you feel with regards to your progress? Are you aligning your present with your future?)
The results are as follows:
Average Satisfaction with Life: 3.222
Average Satisfaction with all aspects of Life: 3.105
Average Difference: -3.63%
Maximum Differences: +100% , -41.67%
Minimum Differences: ±4.17%
% of People who Underestimated: 46.7%
% of People who Overestimated: 38.6%
% of People with Accurate Estimation: 14.7%
Highest Average: Social Life at 3.58
Lowest Average: Professional Life at 2.45
Have you ever heard the term “law of averages” or heard “regress to the mean”?
- If you have great, skip ahead. If you haven’t, it simply means that regardless of how extreme something might seem now, future points (or in this case of life, circumstances) will ultimately be closer to the mean or average.
Before I indulge myself with the data I gathered, here’s an intricate graph I made to illustrate the relationships of the different aspects of our life. Whereas the survey seemed direct and straightforward, life isn’t nowhere near as simple as that. See below:
If it’s too blurry, click here
As you can see from the visual illustration, your life is the amalgamation of various aspects that are somehow, someway, connected and correlated, with some more direct than, while some barely affecting, others.
Do the phrases “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with” and “Tell me who you spend your time with and I’ll tell you who you are” have some basis?
Is there some reason as to why people’s social scores were the highest while their professional lives were the lowest?
Sure, Covid-19 is still around and we’re still quarantined but is that a good enough reason though? People love socializing with others, and that’s a given, especially since we’re social creatures. Thus, if you feel inclined to look for a “starting point” for the graph I made, begin at the blue rectangle labeled “social life”.
You can’t expect to be doing splendid with yourself if your vision is blurrier than someone who’s in dire need of lasik. You can’t expect to have a great life if you’re surrounded by people who don’t even have great lives themselves. You can’t expect to be anywhere near where you want to be professionally if you’re not educated nor possess the necessary experience to be qualified. You can’t clearly define your vision if you don’t have a great sense of self-awareness.
Instead of talking more about my visual representation for the complexities of life, I want to leave it up for interpretation and for anyone who’s interested, I look forward to sharing my side and perhaps my explanation of it via a discussion.
One thing I’d say, however:
It’s a cycle. It’s a loop. It’s a continuous process that repeats over and over and over.
Knowledge is king. Ignorance is not bliss. The conversations you’re having with your friends, family, significant other, classmates, mentors, professors, and/or co-workers, reverberates and manifests itself into future conversations with either the same or different people.
If you’re having conversations with people who offer nothing to your life, you’re doing yourself a disservice by limiting who you can have future, consistent conversations with.
The better you get, the better friends you’ll attract, the better partner you’ll deserve, the clearer your vision will become, the more successful you’ll be in your endeavors, and the more aware you’ll be with yourself, your environment, and the people you surround yourself with.
The law of averages is as real as the laws written by Congress in the United States Statutes at Large. You can only lift yourself up as high as your social circle, educational level, professional career, and romantic partner will allow, which, time and time again, is never enough to realize your vision and make it your reality and your new average.
Never let yourself be anchored. Be fearless. Cut ties and sail away.
Exert as much control as you can wherever you can. Work on yourself as much as you can and elevate only those who are willing to ascend alongside you.
Again, if you want to have a discussion: https://calendly.com/alex-montenegro/30min/
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and perspective on this intricate graph of life I designed!