Far later than I should have, I finally got Outliers at the store and am in the process of reading it.
As I read it, I am joyful, scared, happy, afraid, satisfied, and amazed. But right now I am shocked. Shocked at what Gladwell says and how right I think he is.
I’m fifty pages on from the most important things I have read, yet I didn’t stop until I was shocked.
If you’ve read the book, you will know what I am talking about when I say that I am Southern. My family is from the Appalachians. And that is why I am shocked. The shock was enough to get me off the couch and up to the computer to type what I want to remember the most.
“autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward–are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying” (149)
Hmmm. Need to think about that for homework.
“Work that fulfills these three criteria is meaningful” (150).
“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig” (150).
“if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires” (151).
And, for another shock, I apparently was very much at risk of death on my plane trip in 1988 to Thailand, not just physically assaulted by an old Korean guy. … Thankfully my Korean Air flight did not crash.
Update: Have finished it. Going to use part of it in my linguistics class.