50% - Fail or Pass

This morning, just as I do every morning, I turned the TV on to watch the morning news as I prepared myself for work.  Its a ritual for me, and any change to my ritual throws me for a loop and changes my whole day. Luckily this morning my ritual remained intact and all was well with the world.

As part of my ritual each day, the weather forecaster comes on the screen and advises me on my wardrobe choices, not directly of course, she doesn't tell me what color sweater to pick out or what boots to wear, that would be silly and make me sort of insane,  no she advises me by telling me what temperatures to expect and rain or shine. This morning she showed her map and said the rain storms had passed, we were in for a dry day with sunshine in the afternoon and temperatures in the mid 60's.

I thusly, chose to wear a pair of black slacks, my tom toms, and a light sweater. No additional layering necessary today.

Imagine my surprise as I stepped outside to leave for work and felt something hit my head.  What is that?  Oh dear, there it is again. And more still?  Could it be? Is that rain?  But the forecaster showed me a map that said the rain was gone and it would be dry today?

Am I surprised that our forecaster was once again wrong?  No not really.  It happens more frequent than not and the truth is (especially beginning in the Fall and running through late Spring and early Summer) weather forecasters are wrong at least 50% of the time.

So I was thinking,  when else in life is 50% o.k.?  How many careers can you chose which allow you to be wrong 50% of the time and still be employed? Of course weather forecasters are at the top of my list today,  but who else can be wrong 50% of the time and still keep their job?  You?  Certainly not me!

Here are a few I can think of; The judicial system: Judges, Prosecutors, Defenders - they all have a 50/50 shot of getting it right;  Baseball Players and other professional athletes get paid millions to get it right less than 50% of the time;  Actors and Actresses get it wrong a lot, think of all the stinkers on Television and in the cinemas;  Doctors are a shot in the dark kind of career, it is often an educated guess and sometimes they have to try and try again to get it right.  Scientists will fail a 1000 times before they get it right. Photographers take 100's of photos just to get that ONE special shot.

Some blurbs in life lead to our greatest discoveries, baker and chefs and artist sometimes find that one misstep leads to their most spectacular and beloved creation.

God started with man and then corrected his error and made woman. :)

I guess if they had told me in school that 50% was a passing grade in life, I wouldn't have been so hard on myself.

Then again, who wants to be part of the 50 percentile when they can exceed expectations and be even greater.  I think I'll keep striving for more.