The weighted mean of us

By Herman M. Lagon

It was one of those conversations that only old friends can have—casual enoxugh to begin anywhere, yet deep enough to end somewhere unexpected.

The friend happens to be a mathematics professor. We spent more than a decade working together in a Jesuit school before both of us eventually found ourselves teaching in a state university. We have solved different problems over the years—his often expressed in symbols and equations, mine usually in stories, people, and institutions—but every now and then mathematics quietly wanders into philosophy.

This time, he remarked that he liked the mathematical image of approximating a person’s sense of right and wrong.

The idea lingered with me.

In mathematics, approximation is an admission of humility. We rarely know the exact value, yet through careful observation and sound reasoning, we can come remarkably close. Human beings seem to work that way. None of us is perfectly consistent. We all contradict ourselves occasionally. But if someone watched us long enough—our choices, our conversations, the people we admire, the compromises we repeatedly justify—they could probably approximate our moral compass with surprising accuracy.

Then another mathematical thought occurred to me.

Perhaps we are not simply an average of the people around us. We are a weighted mean.

In statistics, not every value contributes equally. Some observations carry more weight than others. The same is true in life.

The opinion of someone we casually meet online hardly shapes us. But the people we work with every day, the friends we call after midnight, the mentors whose approval we quietly seek, the family members whose voices echo in our decisions—they receive much heavier weights in the equation of who we become.

The closer they are, the greater their influence.

Eventually, their values begin approximating ours.

That realization has become increasingly important as another season unfolds in many universities.

Promotion papers are being assembled. Academic portfolios are being updated. For some friends, everything else understandably waits. Research deadlines, committee work, even ordinary conversations are postponed because the next rank requires attention today. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Career advancement matters. It rewards years of sacrifice and opens new opportunities.

But I have also noticed something else.

There are colleagues who, despite equally demanding promotion requirements, refuse to abandon certain responsibilities. They continue mentoring struggling students. They still answer messages that no one expects them to answer. They remain present in extension work, committee meetings, or difficult conversations because they believe some commitments cannot simply be suspended whenever personal milestones arrive.

Many would probably say that is impractical. Perhaps even unwise. “You can always come back to those later,” someone would advise.

Maybe.

But to some people, those are not optional tasks. They are non-negotiables.

Their mental health is non-negotiable.

Their integrity is non-negotiable.

The students who depend on them are non-negotiable.

Promises already made are non-negotiable.

The mission entrusted to them remains non-negotiable.

That does not necessarily make them morally superior. It simply reveals what carries the greatest weight in their personal equation.

Years ago, while we were still in the Jesuit school, we often heard that education was more than a profession. It was a vocation. Men and women for others was never intended to be a slogan displayed during retreats. It was supposed to become a habit of decision-making.

Old habits, it seems, do not disappear easily.

Perhaps that explains why some of us still struggle to ignore unfinished responsibilities, even when no one would fault us for doing so.

Recently, my daughter said something that initially sounded rather uncompromising.

She told me she simply has no time for people who regard violence, intimidation, double talks, propaganda of lies, rule of the blind mob, gaslighting, misinformation, and even cognitive dissonance as just another political opinion.

I initially thought she was being too absolute. Then I realized she wasn’t talking about politics at all. She was talking about values.

On second thought, I realized she was not rejecting political diversity. She was drawing a moral boundary.

Democracy welcomes disagreement over taxes, education, infrastructure, or foreign policy. Those are genuine political differences. But when violence becomes strategy, intimidation becomes leadership, falsehood becomes identity, and truth becomes optional, we have quietly crossed from political preference into moral preference.

The people who normalize those things also become part of our weighted mean.

So do the people who resist them.

The same principle quietly governs our workplaces.

Culture is seldom created by official policies. It is created by what the people closest to us repeatedly excuse.

We often think our beliefs are entirely our own. They rarely are.

Every conversation leaves a trace. Every friendship nudges us, however slightly, toward what we eventually accept as normal. If those around us excuse dishonesty, intimidation, or indifference, our resistance slowly weakens. If they choose truth, empathy, and accountability, those choices become easier for us to make as well.

No wonder character behaves like a weighted mean. Not everyone influences us equally.

Which is why I still believe the old adage deserves an update.

Show me the people you listen to most—not just the people you know—and I will show you the direction your life is taking.

Show me the people whose voices carry the greatest weight in your life, and I can probably approximate your convictions, your politics, your priorities, and your sense of right and wrong.

Perhaps that is the more difficult question each of us should ask.

Not “What do I believe?”

But “Who have I allowed to shape what I now believe?”

Because long before we cast our votes, choose our careers, or decide what is negotiable and what is not, we have already been solving an equation.

And more often than we realize, we become the weighted mean of the people we choose to keep closest.

***

Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.