Tidbits.

I have two statistical tidbits I try to remind myself of on a regular basis. I learned these two things from the internet, so I know their believability is beyond question.

These tidbits comprise my favourite two pieces of random and useless crap I've learned over the years that serve no practical purpose in the real world - except as reminders that practical purpose may be over rated.

First tidbit. Some crazy guy with a scientific calculator and too much time on his hands crunched the numbers for the occurrence of miracles. I have no idea where he got his miracle information, but I'm assuming he went to wherever it is miracles are generally filed and did some researching...stuff. Maybe he made some photocopies. Perhaps he just typed a word into Google.

The point is, the details don't really matter.

Once he found out how many miracles are reported world-wide in every country that cares about these things on average, he did some number crunching and came up with a theory.

Every person experiences one miracle a month.

I realize this sounds batshit because I don't expect to see anybody walking on water at any point in my lifetime let alone as often as I have my period. However, I liked his definition of what a miracle may be.

It doesn't have to be biblical, epic or even a matter of life or death. By his definition, a miracle is more like good fortune or luck that really has no right to happen.

For example, it was within days of reading this that I was heading to work during morning rush-hour when I lived in Calgary. By Calgary standards, morning rush hour starts at 12:00 a.m. and lasts until 12:00 p.m. when the evening rush hour begins.

I had been been working 17 hour days for several weeks, as I was supporting my douchebag boyfriend at the time who had lost his job through every fault of his own. I was beyond tired, and didn't register the red light I drove straight through until right after I had done it.

That was my monthly miracle. I had never before or since driven through that intersection without numerous cars speeding back and forth between lights.

It shouldn't have been possible that I didn't cause a 30 car pile-up, but I didn't.

A miracle.

My second favourite tidbit comes from a study undertaken on self-image. The premise was simple. A subject was asked to rate her appearance at that time as a percentage. Not as an overall percentage, but on that very day in that very moment.

Perhaps she was having a fat day or her hair wasn't working or she was vaguely concerned she may have remembered to put deodorant only under one arm rather than the socially more acceptable deodorizing of both armpits. Whatever was going on in that moment, that was the percentage she was asked for.

Meanwhile, another group of subjects were also asked to provide a percentage rating of that same woman's appearance in that moment. What the researchers found made me warm and fuzzy. On average, the group rated the test subject 50% better than the test subject rated herself.

Say you roll into the office thinking you're about 20%, what with whatever is happening with your face and that stuff you must have spilled on your pants at some point.

What you're thinking doesn't actually matter, because everybody else around you thinks you're actually rocking 70%!

I don't recall if this study stated whether the test group was legally drunk and or blind, but I don't care. It made me happy. It still makes me happy.

Like many things that make me happy, I'd rather not focus on the details.