A Woman Defined

Art & Culture by Mahvash Mossaed

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

December 4, 2012

He picks up the book I am reading from the chair, looks at the title of it, and quickly smiles in recognizing the name.

“Oh! You are reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He is great. Actually,  I attended one of his talks when I was in the University of Toronto, studying for my Ph.D. Like me, he is a Canadian, you know.” He smiles again before he puts the book down.

I say, “Yes, and I am most fascinated by his mind. No, correction,  I am in love with his intellect and his mind.  Such a mathematical, logical, cold but very real-to-the-bone way of analyzing and looking at things.”

My friend looks at me and smiles again. He says,  “Yes, I know you are a woman who is always fascinated and always passionately in love with something around you.”

I reply, “Yes, of course. That’s how I am. You know, in this book, he is examining the reasons why the very successful people of high achievements have become who they are and have done what they have done. For example, let’s take Bill Gates, who actually changed the world. His success had very much to do not only with his talent and his mind and his brain, but also with the circumstances and the opportunities which came his way that made it all possible for him to reach to the highest of his goals and dreams.”

My friend smiles again and jokingly says, “Thank you. Nice to hear that now I can sleep well tonight knowing that I can blame my circumstance for whatever I failed to achieve.”

“Well,” I respond. “Don’t joke about the author, for I have newly fallen in love with his mind. I am about to finish this book and have already purchased his other book, Blink. Both his books have New York Times bestsellers for a while, you know. Then I add, “Oh, yes, I think he is absolutely brilliant.”

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