Something that Malcolm Gladwell goes into depth into in the beginning of his book is age and the month you were born in. He explains how the month you were born on affects you in so many ways. For example, if the cut off for a youth sports league is January 1st, anyone born in the beginning of the year will have a huge developmental advantages than those born at the end of the year. At a young age months makes a huge difference in maturity and because of that the older kids can become much better players than the younger ones. Then, Gladwell goes into saying how that leads to even more adavantages for them. The better players will be scouted for a more advanced team in which they will practice more and much more intensely making them much better players. Like this they leave behind the younger kids who did not get that opportunity because of their maturity and creates a huge gap between the two. As they get older the older kids will increasingly become better and better and will have a much better chance at becoming professional players. As Gladwell was saying all this he makes it sound as though the younger kids have very little chance at ever becoming professional players like the older ones.
Reading all this made me think about myself, because I am born at the end of the year and for almost everything I have always been one of the younger people. So does everything that goal say apply in the longer run?
As a fellow young child, I attempted to make connection to the author’s claim, but I was unable to relate it to my own life. I could be easily be seen as immature, but that has only harmed my social skills as opposed to intellectual potential. Plus, maturity in my opinion is too much of a biased topic at our age, so that claim is shaky itself. I guess I am just another example of an exception or, perhaps, contradiction to these many claims. These exceptions should not be disregarded, for they can be a key to new knowledge.
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