Statistics

The BYU devotional today was by a Statistics professor. There were two things I'd like to comment on from his remarks.

1. He shared a story about how he and his wife were trying to make a decision and after much deliberation, they decided to flip a coin because their pros and cons lists were equal. After they flipped the coin, it ended up standing straight, and not landing on either side. They had agreed just to flip it once, so they decided it was a sign that they should continue to study out their decision and pray more. I enjoyed this message because I've come to a crossroads as well: to graduate early, or not? So far, it seems like my pros and cons list are about the same length and I could decide with the flip of a coin. But deep down, I know that I too should wait for further instruction and insight as I continue to study my decision out.

2. He also shared stories about "surface judgements." We all have a tendency to judge others (be it for good or bad) on their surface level, before we get to know them well.  The most common example is judging that someone is a bad person because of their appearance or habits. A lesser known example that he shared was when we judge that someone has a "perfect life" or that they don't need help because of their appearance or habits. Maybe this person is cheerful all of the time. Maybe they seem to have success wherever they turn. But when you look deeper, they have problems just like everyone else. I agree with his analysis- I feel that too often, we withhold helping others because we assume that they "have everything under control" or "they don't need it." When in reality, if we dug deeper, we might often find that these people need more help than we realize.

Rhetorically,
Rebekah