this summer has been quite tumultuous in summer reading. much like my mind and sanity. that's another story though. i borrowed quite a number of books from the library and failed to make it through all of them. there were many starts to novels that just started to bore me and i gave up on them.
however i did come across a few books that i really enjoyed. I read Malcolm Gladwell's 3rd book called Outliers. It was a fantastic read. The main point of the novel IMO is that the key to success is not just working hard and having the brains. It is also a matter of one's upbringing, environment, and in fact the timing that one was born.
Many examples were quite good. One that struck me was his analysis on the Canadian youth hockey all-star team. He noticed that all the members of this team were born in the early part of the year. Why is that I wondered. It was because the cut off date for the beginners was Dec 31st. The children who were stronger and more mature were obviously the older players - the ones born in Jan, Feb, etc.
Another good one was his noticing that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sun Microsystem founders were all born in 1954. Also, it takes approximately 10,000 hours to be successful which is equivalent to about 10 years. We cannot assume that people become overnight sensations, it may appear that way to us but in fact they probably worked hard for it. The day I read that book I noticed that one of my favorite shows The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was in the comedy business for 10 years until he got his fame as the Daily Show host. I also watched Ellen that day and there was a child prodigy pianist, she was about 8 years old. She mentioned that she practiced all day long about 8 hours a day since she was 3 years old. It made sense.
Another book that I read is called Science of Happiness by Stefan Klein. The bookstore and library is always full of self-help and motivational books. But really what is the evidence supporting their arguments? Some stories of people who did really well - but they might be the exception to the rule. In this book by Klein, he discusses happiness from a scientific perspective (duh) with research done on rats and chimpanzees and also by telling his readers about the chemicals in the brain that control happiness like dopamine. I read it a while ago and I'm not science-inclined so I can't remember all the fancy names. All I know is that I liked that he proved the importance of family, friendship, staying occupied, and love in one's happiness with such concrete examples. I've been telling everyone I've met to read it. One of those books that changed my way of thinking.
Another book I read this summer was He's Just Not That Into You. I have a long rant for that book so I'll save it for tomorrow.
3 comments:
Does Dr. Klein really suggest love in a persons life for happiness? Does he mean human to human love or just loving anythinig? I guess I wonder because loving another person can be a bit salty sometimes and I've seen love cause pain quite a few times (ending relationships, affairs, all that jazz). Care to clarify. On another note, that Gladwell is always up to writing something good. I think I saw a Scientific American (sorry I am science-inclined) about measuring people's abilities. I'll see if I can find it for you sometime. It says more or less the same thing. That people get good because of hard work and pushing themselves to improve then with talent alone. Tell our paths cross again.
well by love, i think he does not necessarily mean the romantic kind. i think he meant having someone who cares about you like family, that makes you feel less alone. also you're right having a passion for something or just enjoying it that kind of love too.
heartbreak sucks. it's so painful and does affect one's happiness doesn't it? but when a person feels love it feels good. i'm sure you've seen that with your friends in successful relationships, it feels like you're on top of the world.
do share that article from scientific american.
well love is an interesting quandary. It has potential for good and bad, like most things I suppose. There is a great ted talk by Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who has researched love for many many years. its definitely worth checking out if you want to learn what her research suggests about the "feeling" of love. Love does a lot of interesting things chemically in the brain and a lot of the same chemicals that cause euphoria and such are apparent in moments of love so i can see why people feel that way (on top of the world feeling). Its evolutionary advantageous to reward social pairing and bonding, so its made to feel good so we pair up and reproduce.
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