Bill Gates. The Beatles. Canadian hockey players. Jewish immigrant lawyers.
What do they all have in common? According to Malcolm Gladwell, as stated in his best selling book, Outliers, they were all conditioned to succeed through a series of unforeseen and uncontrollable events. Rather than explaining reasons for this success in a limp attempt to summarize Mr. Gladwell's work, I offer you my own boiled down, 5-word interpretation of why: Everything happens for a reason. I've heard this phrase tossed around lightly like a Nerf football on Thanksgiving morning. Some flip it for short gains in trivial conversations; others chunk it deep as a hail mary to profound questions they'd rather not ponder. I, however, have a devout respect for the saying and do not pass it off so lightly. First, let's clarify something. Everything happens for a reason is not a tenet for idle poodles woofing it as an excuse for their flea-infested laziness. It is not an alternative to taking action. It does not mean that "everything will be okay." In fact, many times pain and suffering are necessary slices to the whole pie. After all, failure is the surest way to succeed. (The smartest people in the world are those able to learn from others' failures, saving themselves the time and trouble of repeating it. But I digress.). Everything happens for a reason is an axiom of traced logic. It typically starts -- as in most, if not all of Gladwell's case studies -- with an uncontrollable event. Why such an inciting incident occurs is not up to us. But the beauty of this principle lies in how we react. There are infinite choices we make on a daily basis; one leading to another, compounding from a single snowflake into a two-ton snowball cascading down the mountainside. These choices we make, rolled on top of the opportunities we tumble past every day...they are the ingredients that stir our life's soup. The thing is, you never realize what you're sipping until it's already become leftovers. But unless you can predict the future, that's just how the soup drips. The fun part is tracing your logic. Recounting your steps. Reliving your experiences. Discovering how one thing lead to another, and why you landed where you did. If you like where you're standing; nice landing. If not; figure out why. Because if you landed awkwardly, it's most likely for a reason. And that reason is to live and learn. Heal and grow. Move on. You might have twisted an ankle or skinned your knee on the way down, but at least you're still standing. Revise and optimize. Catch your breath long enough to inhale a moment of enlightenment, make you next decision, then keep tumbling down that mountain. Too often, people get sucker-punched by the feel-good story of Lucky Louise and her felicitous rise to fame. But luck is just the lime in Louise's pad thai. True, it's a crucial ingredient to her success. But there's more to it. Everything happens for a reason. What's yours?
2 Comments
3/12/2011 02:08:38 pm
Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves. Do you agree?
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