I was born in 12th of August. I was one of the shortest kids when I first entered elementary school. It was possible that I felt timid because of my relatively small size compared to that of others. But I felt different. Though I thought that it would be nice if I were taller and bigger, I was proud of being small. I was more fascinated by the fact that I would grow.
The very first chapter of Outliers focuses on how the birth month, which seems to have no relationship with success, actually affected the success of many athletes and students just because the due date for the enrollment to a team or an advanced education program was set at an arbitrary time. The surprising fact was that, unlike public opinion, people who were born in the month right before the month of the due date were more likely to be admitted than others. Because they had more time to grow and study, they had this seemingly unfair advantage.
When I first read this chapter, I was also very surprised just as others would. It even seemed so unfair that the system needs to change. However, as I contemplated more on this issue. I found the statistics misleading. Yes, it is out of question that the statistics itself is true. However, the conclusion the writer deduced from it was true but not true. The suitable month of birth actually helped some luckily born people as far as success was concerned; however, it was to be questioned whether the really talented people were hindered by the system.
The obvious conclusion, I found, was No. Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona, who is undoubtedly one of the best soccer players throughout the history, is not as tall or big as other players are. He is rather one of the shortest guys among soccer players. If you base your logic on Malcom Gladwell's conclusion, Lionel Messi must fall into a victim of the system. But he didn't. Even with such disadvantage, he achieved more things than any of his competitors did. From this example we can deduce that true talent is not hindered by arbitrary rules of system if the talented has enough will.
So what do you think personally? We talked about it last week and you had quite good things to say, so try and work in your opinion.
답글삭제Two future reading journals you should prepare for are: 1) You pick someone famous not in the book and illustrate how they qualify as an outlier 2) You take a look at yourself and illustrate how you perhaps fall into this outlier category (or hope to in the future).