Outliers is a composition of examples on how some people have become "outliers" or simply someone or something that stands out. People like Billl Gates, Joe Flom, Korena Air, and others. Outliers is not about simply looking at sucess its about seeing how the person got there not by their own ambition, but by their surroundings like who their family is, where they grew up, even their birth date. Outliers connects to my life but pointing out reaccurances that caused success that I could even apply to my own life.
One the first things I notticed that I could easily slip into my life would be the 10,000 hour rule. "In fact, researchers have settled on what the believe is the magic number for true enterprise: ten thousand hours." (40) This past fall I played on the varsity field hokcey team and if I put more hours into practicing maybe at home I know it would be a stretch to reach ten thousand but the more the better. So I'm going to practice more now and maybe I'll improve some more this year.
Anoher way I found Outliers connected to my life was through the chapter about how chinese people are advanced compared to americans because their language allows them to learn the number system more quickly than americans do in english, "Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be uttered in less than one-quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is 's' and 7 'qi'). Their English equivalents - "four," "seven"- are longer: pronouncing them take about one-third of a second."(228) This sounds pretty realistic and its backed up as being the reason for that asians are often smarter than many americans. The memory gap between English and chinese aparently is entirely due to this difference in length." (228) I'm in a few "advacned classes" in our school. I took algebra in eigther grade along with earth science and I'm AP European History. I find that a majority of those classes have asian students in them. A huge american stereotype for asians is that they're smart and they truly are. I often find myselfstruggling while other asian counterparts are swiftly moving to the next probelm. If I focused more or put in more effort than I could porbably get close to matching up to them.
Another chapter in this book that I felt connected to my life was the chapter on the family feuds. The feuds were all about honor. " The consensus appears to be that of what sociologists call a 'culture of honor'" (166) In highschool there are a lot of fights and some of them the people who weren't even having the argument are the ones throwing the punches. this is because of their"honor". It also stated that if you were from the south your anger and aggressiveness would go up faster than someone from the north. "Call a southerner an asshole and he's itching for a fight" (173). My mothers family comes from the north and my fathers family comes from the south, but to me there are certain words that if I get called I wouldn't just sit there and take them.
Outliers overall was an intersting book but I wouldn't recomd it to anybody who's into ready all about facts and studies and statistics. If you're more into imaginations stimulation this isn't the type of book for you. Besides that it was an okay book and there are plenty of ways to use the information in your life and see how some of the stories connect.
No comments:
Post a Comment