After reading, "The Story of Success" by
Malcolm Gladwell, what immediately caught my attention was the brief reading
from the New Testament; Matthew and what that meant. I believe that
Matthew meant that we should use what God has given you to the best of your
ability and to honor him and your gifts will be multiplied. If you do not
use them, your gifts could be taken away. This is an interesting excerpt
to accompany this reading because I believe that society's definition of
success as a result of hard work and dedication is completely contradicted.
Success is simply dependant on timing, and those who seize that gift of
timing. He uses the example of the Canadian hockey players and how those
that were born close to the cutoff date of January 1st were then given special
opportunities. Those that were "lucky enough" then received the
best coaches, more practice time and were able to hone their skills at a much
higher level. Simply by being born at a more "opportune" time
benefited these young boys and catapulted them into a league of their own, a
greater chance of success. I am not saying that these kids did not put
forth the dedication and hard work needed to be successful, however, I
will say that the advantages that they were privy to does playa bigger role in
their success.
Furthering this thought of timing,
and how important it is, we need to take a look at how this affects students on
the academic level. Speaking from
personal experience, I was one of those children that was unfortunately born at
the end of August. My parents chose to
start me into school as the youngest of my class. They thought that getting a “heads start”
would eventually help me in the future.
According to Gladwell, this put me immediately at a disadvantage. I now find myself questioning how something
as simple as when I was born had a domino effect on how the rest of my life
then played out in correlation with success.
Was that decision of being the youngest in my class the reason that I
didn’t finish college right after high school? Would I have been more
successful at an early age if I would have been stayed behind and been the
oldest in my class? Was I immediately disqualified for the formula of
success-good grades+good college+good job=good life? Gladwell stated that even the disadvantages
of starting early would eventually even out with the ones that started at the
right time, and again from personal experience I can say, I always felt like I
was behind in all aspects and no matter how hard I worked I would never catch
up.
This interesting concept of timing
shakes up the theory of success. The
children that were born at the right time of the year are not better, nor do they
have that “special gift”. They are
simply given special treatment to help further them along in the hopes of
maturing their skills. I do agree with
Gladwell and believe that we as a
society need to take another look at how we pedistal these kids that are born
at a certain time. We focus so much on
that, that we could be over looking many young talents that are just as
deserving. In honor of this being Sunday
and watching football, I’d like to end on this.
Tom Brady went to the University of Michigan and was seventh on the
depth chart, he struggled to catch the attentions of the coaches; he even
sought out a psychologist to help with the frustration and anxiety. He ended up having a successful career his
last two years but only went on to be the 199th pick in the NFL
draft. Brady was to be the New England
Patriots fourth string quarterback. If
it wasn’t for his hard work and dedication to be successful; Tom Brady wouldn’t
have even been a name. His birthday is
August 3. Kind of makes you wonder……..
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