I am okay with that.

  This weekend I was having a conversation with my friends Tyren and Chinos about a book called "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. I never read the book, but I received a very good explanation of what it was about. The author wrote about why people have great success. The example that Tyren gave was that of hockey players in Canada. Kids who were born well before the cut off date are typically bigger than the ones who just made the cut off date to enter school, therefore, more athletic for the most part. So those kids always had an advantage because they were in an environment where they stood out physically. Through the years they would play hockey, they would always get to go to the good hockey camps and continue to get better and better. This set them up for success above their peers. The book seemed to question if success was based on "natural" talent or genes like we always seemed to think. Maybe a person's success was based on something else. Malcolm Gladwell presents the idea that these great professional athletes, businessmen, actors, simply had the advantage of being in the right environment.

  

  Every time I come home since I have been in college and now post-college, I have began to notice how different I am from the people around me. I look around at people in my neighborhood and all around my hometown and notice that I am different in a lot of ways. Why is that? I grew up in the same neighborhood, same school, similar circumstances and a few other variables that are closely related. However, we are completely un-alike. There must be something else that plays a factor in the outcomes of one person to the other. 

  While I agree with Malcolm that environment plays a role in how a person ends up and how they are set up for success, I believe there is something else that goes with it. My reason being that if it was solely environmental conditions, I would be much more like the people I see back home. I think there is power in encouragement. Despite the situations I grew up in, I was set up for success by being told that life does not have to be like you see it now. It can look totally different for me. I can be someone. I can go somewhere. I think that is the "other" thing. I think that encouragement is the difference between a person who "makes it out and does something". Why? Well someone had the heart and told me that I do not have to settle for what I see.  Some people do not get to have someone tell them that. I realize how blessed I am, but at the same time my heart breaks for those I see who did not have what I had. 

  By all means, this is not a blog to bash or puff myself up, but merely to reveal a point. I CHOSE to go to college, I CHOSE to dream big, I CHOSE to live a different lifestyle than what I saw, but instead a Christian lifestyle. All these things contribute to who I am now and how I live now. When I mention to people from home that I enjoy hanging out at coffee shops with friends and reading books, or that I have a desire to be married in my early twenties and that I love going on mission trips to tell people about the love of Christ, it shocks them. I truly believe it's because its against the "norm". It's different than usual. It is different than my past environment. I admit it, I am different in a lot of ways, but I am okay with that.

Untill next time...

-Christian