A lady I barely knew on the elevator:
“Well, my ankle’s not back to 100% yet.”
I had no idea what she was talking about since I really don’t tend to commit banal or chit-chat conversations with people I barely know, to long term memory. She seemed to be waiting for a response though.
“I can’t think of any body part I have that is at 100% anymore.”
She laughed. I was saved.
Which got me thinking about how a typical middle aged person succumbing to the natural decline of nearly everything could/should adjust their expectations.
For me, I think the Root Mean Square of a sine wave best describes it. (Electronics math, I used to teach this stuff)
The actual cycling voltage of the alternating current in your household wall socket swings between +169.7v and -169.7v. But those peaks are only there for a very small percentage of the entire cycle time, so the ‘effective’ or RMS voltage, sort of an average, equals .707 X the peak 169.7 = 120v.
I thought that formula sounded sort of right. So I really don’t concern myself with every ache, pain, or body part any more until it drops below 70.7 percent of peak comfort or performance, because those peaks don’t really stay there for very long anyhow.
