What Shapes our lives? Something to chew on... Manju Seal

What Shapes our lives? Something to chew on...

December 19 2008

Malcolm Gladwell's new book - Outlier

"As Gladwell told Jason Zengerle of New York magazine: “The book’s saying, ‘Great people aren’t so great. Their own greatness is not the salient fact about them. It’s the kind of fortunate mix of opportunities they’ve been given.’ ”" NYT

to begin with - what a complex and rich topic? opportunities, or individual traits or society - what shapes individual success? as you would agree, it is not an either - or discussion. our lives - a tapesty of experiences that we have - across time - is limited/shaped by our inner/outer realities and personal abilities. each individual's life is neither determined by society nor personal power only, completely. there are many many factors besides these that wrestle against each other - some of which one can personally control while others we cannot (at any given moment in time).

if you were to create a model with all the factors (for geeks like me) and attempt to quanitfy/predict what an individual would become at the end of their lifetime - even estimating would be impossible. it is an organic process - with no constants at any level. and yet how do you personally define for yourself/aspire what is success today that will measure up to that same bar when you are 80?

85 broads women and their experiences (personal and professional lives) would make an amazing petridish for Malcolm Gladwell and social scientists!

....and the above a great topic for heated debates at your holiday dinners next week! tell me what you find....

Articles:
Chance and Circumstance
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/books/review/Leonhardt-t.html?ref=opinion

Lost in the Crowd
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/opinion/16brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Tags: outliers, manju seal, malcolm gladwell, success

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