When things don’t quite add up, try changing the calculator.

It was in Statistics class that it happened. A group of variables could not be processed by a relatively known and accepted method because they failed to meet the criteria of ‘normalcy’ [normality is the actual statistical term]….

We were forced to try a different method of analyzing all the data or at least making it analyzable.. This we did by finding the log of each numeral, running the normal process then working out the anti-log to achieve the true value. It was tiresome (I wanted to quit half way through) but it worked.. We got a chance to work on the data set as if it had been normal (jeez stats is quite prejudiced..hmm).

Each of us has a unique lens through which we view the world and the happenings in it…a framework of sorts, a calculator; spitting out output based on our internal formulas. This system is influenced to a large extent by the way we see ourselves and more importantly by the programmed principles we have been exposed to and now accept as ‘truths’.

When faced with an unidentifiable situation (new) we may experience fear, denial, frustration, anger and confusion. Or if our framework has been sufficiently socially reinforced to the point where individual thinking rarely occurs, (for example if thinking is done for us) then we force that new situation into a pre-existing category in our minds. We stuff it in that box and ignore the truth and logic that we had to trim off to make it fit.

True change and growth occurs when we can find that new formula.... or experience that's called a paradigm shift.

It is time to challenge all 'knowns' or at least to question them. After all, no advancement in any area of civilization has ever occurred without first questioning the accepted truths.

Think of all the modern conveniences we now enjoy that never would have come about if some brave soul hadn't questioned the 'accepted truths'.