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2018 in Books #1 : Outliers

My membership at the Evanston Public Library is my best-worst decision. Best, because I now have e-books delivered right into my Kindle without having me trudge in snow to borrow or return a book and the worst, because it is going to make me lazy and unfit.  Cut to the chase, Outliers has been a good start to 2018. At a modest 300 odd pages, Malcolm Gladwell writes a deeply researched and critically analysed account of success stories that we know of.  | The biggest takeaway you can get from Outliers  is the "other side" of stories, which are often ignored for the sake of glorification of the achievement. | It was enjoyable to see how tiny, seemingly inconsequential factors can help a person go a long way. A popular example the book talks about is Bill Gates' rise as a billionaire when he was a college dropout.  Treating his story superficially has led to popularizing the opinion, "hey, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg were college drop outs
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Connect and Reconnect

There is one thing that the year 2015 taught me was to always be open to meeting new people and rekindling old relationships. Up until then I guess I was rather introverted, reserved and anti-social, the kind who would proudly say "bah, I hate new people, I won't get along, damn them all."

Times, circumstances and I changed.

You get to learn a lot from people and try out new things, stuff you would not have ever done before. Be it nonsensical talks or going to new places, you end up having company for trying out stuff. New company works for doing such superficial things very well

One reason I love new encounters and connecting with people is you get to know things you probably haven't heard of. You never know what all exists in this world, what all opportunities are there and all the things you could possibly do with your life! This helps especially when you feel you are in a rut or are simply frustrated with where you are.

From a recent experience, it has been absolutely refreshing meeting someone new who turned out to be not so like minded yet great. It is a breath of fresh air in this monotony. And this person is helping me reconnect with my hobbies and inadvertently pushing me to become a better person (or so I believe).

You never know the kind of impact a person can have on you and vice versa. Random people you have met briefly can affect you deeply. Some can leave you so inspired and in awe just listening to the things they have done making you reevaluate yourself. Through simple conversations you can possibly inspire someone too. It could be something benign you said or did that can trigger off motivation in our heads.

It is also an adventure, exploring someone's personality. No, I don't mean a deep introspection or getting to know them very closely. Surface digging works too :P. Basically, it's people who give us new windows to see the different parts of the same world we live in or glasses to view this very same world a little differently. Perspective is gyaan.

So just go on, meet more people, talk and listen to them. A "hello" can go a long way, didn't we learn that from Jab We Met?

Learn and be inspired. Open mind, always.

PS: I think I'm going to make those last 3 words my catchphrase :P 
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