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I believe in the 50-percent theory. Half the time things are better than normal; the other half, they are worse. I believe life is apendulum（钟摆）swing. It takes time and experience to understand what normal is, and that gives me the perspective to deal with the surprises of the future. Let's benchmark the parameters: Yes, I will die. I've dealt with the deaths of both parents, a best friend, a beloved boss and cherished pets. Some of these deaths have been violent, before my eyes, or slow andagonizing（苦恼的）. Bad stuff, and it belongs at the bottom of the scale. Then there are those high points: romance and marriage to the right person; having a child and doing those Dad things like coaching my son's baseball team, paddling around thecreek（小溪）in the boat while he's swimming with the dogs, discovering his compassion so deep itmanifests（表明）even in his kindness to snails, his imagination so vivid he builds a spaceship from a scattered pile of Legos. But there is a vast meadow of life in the middle, where the bad and the good flip-flop acrobatically. This is what convinces me to believe in the 50-percent theory. One spring I planted corn too early in a bottomland so flood-prone that neighbors laughed. I feltchagrined（苦恼的，失望的）at the wasted effort. Summer turned brutal -- the worst heat wave and drought in my lifetime. The air-conditioner died, the well went dry, the marriage ended, the job lost, the money gone. I was living lyrics from a country tune -- music I loathed. Only a surging Kansas City Royals team, bound for their first World Series,buoyed（支撑，鼓励）my spirits. | 
