It came to my attention this past fall that I have an incurable habit of rounding up and rounding down.
I was being asked about running and how fast and how far and it seems I inadvertently put myself on par with a 17 year old boy in peak physical shape. It was somewhat innocent because I rarely measure distance or time.
It was not an out and out lie it was just part of my natural tendency to see things far better then they are.
Combine that with my inamicable relationship with numbers and I can be terribly or charmingly inaccurate.
If the way we label things becomes the way they are, this is a strength as much as a disability.
things I round up
-my ability
-my memory
-my EQ
-my skill
-my view of self
-my height
-my fitness
-my finances
-my IQ*
-my place in the world
-my happiness
-my future
-my business
things I round down
-my age (the inside age, that is, you know, the way I feel, my real age is no less a mystery than anyone elses, we look well or poorly for our age, rarely younger although sometimes older than our age)
-my weight
-my IQ*
-my mortgage
-my fears
-how much of my hair is actually grey
-the likely age I will retire
– my age spot to ‘freckle’ ratio
-how many days my eldest lives away from me (“it is a longish field trip”)
-how much I have left to do when I get into bed at night