Odds

January 10, 2011

#30harimenulis, Day 6

After I read some chapters from Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, I reckon that life is tricky in some ways. It’s not about being stronger, taller, richer, even smarter than others. It is more than that.

Say, there are more than a thousand people applied for being under-graduate students in a nation best, most known, elite, university. The university would only accept about 50 people out of those. Of those applicants, around 60 people scored perfectly in intelligent test being held in the selection process. And how, would we choose 50 from those 60 perfectly scored people? Some people are going to be rejected, of course, but on what base?

Here, other factors apart from intelligence work. Let’s consider one little thing that most people are unaware of, the first letter in your name. Through experience, I’ve learned that this matters a lot. Some institutions, having had to deal with the situation I described above, would use a rather ‘unique’ method. A method to select some people of whose scores are equally perfect to get accepted by the first letter in their names. Unsurprisingly, in this particular method, people would get advantages from their names if they were having the first letters  from the alphabets (e.g. A, B, C,…. etc.) as the first letter in their names. Those people would likely possess bigger chances to get selected and accepted compared with those whose name are started with latter letters in the alphabets (e.g. M, N, R, S…etc), even if they have the exact same scores on the test.

Sounds like a lottery? Well maybe it is.

So sad, but true.

As I discuss this with my dad, he came up with this, “now you realised why me and your mother gave you and your sisters’ name with ‘A’ as the first letter, don’t you? We tried to give you our best to anticipate things. Though we thought you and your sisters were most likely to grow as smart girls, not the smartest, but still, smart enough to compete with others, we happened to know that being smart, or strong, or tall, or fast, or even most hard-working of all is not everything you’ll need in life. There is always chance things happen, or not happen, for some small reasons we are not aware of, we don’t understand about. You and your sisters having A as the first letter of your name is only one thing among many other little things that can influence your life events. “

Impressive.

I feel awe, Dad. Really am.

So, I guess we have to admit that whether we like it or not, chances, opportunities, odds, or what scientists might call with ‘series of events – of which its occurence – are statistically predictable’ really does have its influences on our lives.

Or, does it?

You tell me.

– D! –

Written by Dhea Sekararum Posted in The books, comics, animes and the lessons they bring, The thoughts and point of views Tagged with #30harimenulis, lesson learned, life, odds