The Dawn Treader

Expose The Truth:

Gladwell correctly discovers that extraordinary people are more than just smart people or people that work really hard.  Extraordinary people are smart (though not necessarily brilliant), hard working and well … basically lucky.  Opportunity came knocking and they answered.  The world seems to be full of really smart and hard working people who did not do extraordinary things.  Why?  Timing.  They were born at a time when the window of opportunity was shut.

Gladwell also locks into something true about the cultural legacies.  Talking about cultural differences is touchy in this day and age.  Just look at the racial stereotypes that abound in the discussion about immigration in this country.  Nevertheless, Gladwell is correct to point out that some cultures view authority differently, and therefore, act differently in some circumstances.  Some cultures view work differently than others.  It is just the way it is.  Trying to pretend those differences are not real is only going to leave you with a distorted view of reality.

Expose The Lie :

Gladwell tends to define extraordinary as either extraordinarily wealthy or extraordinarily famous (and usually wealthy).  I think there are outliers who are extraordinarily humble and self-forgetting that don’t show up in Gladwell’s analysis.  In other words, success goes beyond fame.  A life successfully lived is a life of virtue and honor and fidelity to God and family.  All of us are capable of success, not just Bill Gates because he was born at the right time and had exposure to computers at an early age.

Gladwell also fails to understand providence.  The Bible does not teach the concept of good or bad luck.  Joseph was not unlucky because he happened to have jerks as brothers who were willing to sell him into slavery.  God is sovereign, omnipotent and omniscient.  God looks at time … future and past … the way we look at history.  In other words, all of time (including our future) is kinda like past history to God (or as C.S. Lewis calls it, the eternal now).  There is not some surprise outcome, some lucky break waiting to happen.  God's plan always involved having Joseph thrown into slavery by his jealous brothers.  His plan always involved having Christ betrayed and executed on a Roman cross.  Those were not unlucky breaks, thank God.  Further, Bill Gates was always a bazillionaire and you are not.  That is just the way it is.  It is all part of God’s redemptive plan for creation and the elect.  Therefore, we shouldn’t look for formulas for success, or social engineering, or government solutions to build some utopia.  We ought to simply follow God’s design for life.  Go read the book of Proverbs, for example.  Follow the wisdom there.  It promotes hard work.  It promotes gaining knowledge and acquiring wisdom.  It promotes integrity and virtuous living.  Guess what?  Those things actually work in life.  Test them and you will see.  Maybe God will choose to entrust billions of dollars to your stewardship, or a nobel prize to you, or a best selling book … or maybe not.  Regardless of those accolades, none of which you take to the next life, we are called to be good fathers, good sons, good husbands and good neighbors …. and live life well.  That is true success.  There is nothing lucky about it.

Especially Thought Provoking :

Gladwell's chapter on plane crashes was riveting.  It will change forever how I view flying.  Literally every time I board an aircraft from now on, I can see myself thinking of Gladwell's book.

His chapter on his own family history in Jamaica was surprisingly poignant to me.  I grew up in Jamaica, and I know its culture and therefore understand exactly what Gladwell is talking about.  I was moved by reading it.