Chasing the Wrong Statistics

AML and Suspicious Activity Monitoring are often about looking at statistics and hunting for anomalies that could indicate crime.  But sometimes we find ourselves chasing the wrong statistics. 

We have surrounded ourselves with so much technology that sometimes we miss the most important gadget of all – us!

One of my fall pastimes is judging music at high school marching band contests around the country.  This fall will be my 15th year as a music judge and chief judge.  The first thing that greets me when I hear a band play is their intonation – are they playing in tune?  Often, the band director will have each student pass by a tuning device, play one note, and make sure the needle is in the right place.  Useless.  When they do that, they are using their eyes instead of listening with their ears.  Plus it ignores all of the other notes on their instrument, and there are no tuners out on the field when they perform anyway.  Good intonation comes from listening to the ensemble and using your ears, not from looking at a meter.

I know that the following will come as a shock to you, but I have been chasing my goal weight for years.  Yes, I know I am the only one out there doing that – hah!  I took off a bunch of weight a couple years ago, and have kept most of it off, but I never actually got to my goal weight.

One of the things that I hate the most about dieting is the whole weigh-in thing.  I hate getting on the scale and letting it dictate whether I have been successful or not.  So, I tried an experiment and stopped getting on the scale.  Liberation! Let’s face it, we know when we’ve been good or bad when it comes to eating, and I don’t need a scale to tell me that or yell at me (I, of course, have a digital scale with voice synthesis).  Instead, the best metric is how I feel.  That might mean how my clothes fit, or just how my body feels walking down the street.  Plus, I know myself well enough that if the scale number isn’t where I want it to be, then my tendency will be to say "forget it," and go binge.  My body tells me its status, not my scale.

This is pretty ironic, considering I am a lifetime addicted techno-geek (and love it).  But when it comes to gauging things – especially when it comes to right and wrong – the best arbiter is you and your gut instinct, whether it is playing in tune or deciding whether you are overweight, or whether you are a success or failure….whatever you feel is right.

Listen to yourself first, and look at the gadgets second.