10,000 Hours All to Do.......

     When asked to pick just one thing to devote 10,000 hours to, many typical answers come to mind.  I immediately thought of becoming a world renown pianist or an amazing theatrical actress; one who brings the curtain down on a New York City theater; maybe even a dancer who everyone wanted to emulate. However, when I allowed myself to take a closer look into the question, I found myself thinking much deeper into what surrounded it.  I agreed with Gladwell when he stated that greatness requires an enormous amount of time.  I also noticed another key factor in that each of the examples he used in the chapter brought to light a practiced skill that was new and exciting to the world at that time.  So to resort to a very average answer, I could not do.  If I were to become an "expert" and devote 10,000 hours, it would to become a human lie detector.  
     More so now than ever we as a society run from the truth at almost any cost.  Wouldn't it be not only great, but helpful to have someone that could tell who was lying just from looking?  It would be a skill that would be helpful on all levels across the world.  After all, everybody lies, some more than others, and some lies cause irreversible damage.  Take for instance the current political race.  It has become so hard to tell what is true, what is false, and more importantly who is telling what?  This "honed" skill would benefit everyone that is voting for the improvement of our country and eliminate those who were not telling the truth.  Lie detection would stop wasting all of our times with nonsense.  How did we ever get so far from, "Thou shall not tell a lie"?  
     In becoming this surveyor of falsehood, one has to think of how to practice that.  I have always been a good judge of character which according to Gladwell, this "natural" talent is due to the fact of what environment I was put in from early on.  In racking up 10,000 hours I would need to study the physical body and its gestures along with verbal cues, emotional gestures, contradictions, a persons reactions and interactions, content and context; all of which may indicate someone is lying.  Along with studying the human body I would then have to "happen" to study with psychologists or police as they are the most knowledgeable in the field so far.  After that, one of those important psychologists or policemen would let me interview some of the most talented liars and learn from them. All leading up to 10,000 hours equaling myself as an "expert" in lying.   
     This "expert" status is a nice theory in thought, just like Gladwell's rule., however I don't think it could ever be achieved.  This powerful knowledge of being able to spot a lie would be useful for everyone and every day in any situation; from a cheating boyfriend to being able to punish the right child for writing in crayon on the wall, it would even mean a correction to our legal system.  Alas, sometimes ignorance is bliss.  When you are able to spot a lie at first sight, gaining that knowledge may hurt when it is obvious that someone you love is lying to you.  At that instance, it might seem like you just wasted 10,000 hours.