The greatest outlier of them all
- Katie Bianchini
- Feb 14, 2019
- 7 min read
Since the end of grad school, I’ve been treating myself to some quality pleasure reading time. (See bottom of blog for a few recent fave books)
I most recently finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Through countless anecdotes, Gladwell concludes that people who we consider to be “outliers”—people at the top or bottom of their craft in a multitude of categories: lawyers, software creators, businessmen, athletes, pilots—are not really outliers at all, but rather products of their unique, exceptional, or mysterious circumstances.
It’s not one magical happening that causes these people to be the best (or worst) at their game, but rather a build-up of little moments that lead to their eventual stardom (or loser-dom).
Most fascinating to me was his chapter on plane crashes. When I think of a disaster like a plane crash, I picture the engine exploding in unexpected fury and the cabin hopelessly plummeting toward the earth.
Gladwell says: not so.
He elaborates on several “famous” plane crashes that each go down (no pun intended) in the same way: “the result of an accumulation of minor difficulties and seemingly trivial malfunctions” (pg. 183). For example, the pilot, overtired from long hours without sleep, might face poor weather conditions, work with an unfamiliar co-pilot, and attempt to hurry the flight to catch up from a previous delay.
With these underlying factors in place, the pilot and co-pilot then make a series of minor errors, that alone would never cause a crash, but in conjunction, pile up to cause the perfect storm.
Gladwell talks about “outliers” occurring because of a perfect series of opportunities and actions or reactions.
But isn’t that how any “normal” non-outlier thing occurs, too?
I thought about the way training for running events works, especially in college. Running injuries do not usually occur in “crash-and-burn” situations like in other sports: hardly ever does someone fall on the inside rail of the track and break their legs or arms.
Instead, running injuries crop up over time because of a little owie or muscular imbalance that you keep running on which causes compensation and the compensation carries over to the way you perform weights exercises and the way you walk around campus…until you have a stress fracture.
Alternately, it’s not necessarily the people who run the fastest at practice who win races, but rather the people who stay just healthy enough to show up at practice every single day to put in consistent work, the ones who balance the stress of school work and practice and that one internship and this club over here and living with a stranger who has totally different habits than you in a shoe box next to hundreds of other noisy stranger-filled shoe boxes.
Rooming with people in college really gives you the opportunity to either quickly accumulate a pile of “minor errors” that lead to a good old “plane crash,” or almost magically build a palace, stone by stone, of a lifelong friendship.
Lucky for me, all four of my college roomies—and all seven other girls who lived in The Village apartment senior year—were THE BEST, “Palace Builder Extraordinaires,” if you will.
And I don’t think they’re awesome because of one, solitary event, but rather the “build-up” of teensy tiny moments:
The days of waking to each other’s alarms, listening to music as you prepared for the day, and then, whoever got ready first, ordering you both two over-easy eggs with cheese in the cafeteria before the breakfast line closed.
The times you watched the storm out the window, the rain beating against the panes much harder than anything either of you had seen in Washington.
Climbing to the *forbidden* rooftop [remember this is a hypothetical list of options, Lipscomb Admin] to stare at the sunset or sunrise, one of you glancing around like a mall cop to secure the scene while the other scurried up the ladder.
The righteous anger you displayed for each other when facing the first injury (and the second and the third and the fourth…), the tearful conversation outside the cafeteria, and the cross-training sessions that followed.
Days of driving to the YMCA while blasting Lady Gaga’s “Live for the Applause.”
Cleverly attempting to place the mini-fridge on its side on the shelf above the “kitchen sink” to save space, and, upon plugging it in in its new home, realizing it buzzed like a saw on its way to a wood-chopping-party. Then treacherously bringing it down from the shelf again while balancing on rickety desk chairs.
The trips to Memphis and Disney World…hours in the car really show your true character ;)
The rough days where she bought you a Great Harvest blueberry banana muffin because, as she said on the accompanying notes, they’re proven to “fix X issue.”
Running across campus shouting various phrases as loud as possible definitely increased your mutual respect.
The pranking—which should have broken all sorts of trust—CERTAINLY drew admiration on both sides. The day one of you mailed the other ALL (and when I type “all” I think you read “most of” but what I mean is ALL) her bras and underwear…followed by the retaliatory posting of thousands of “Wish this Girl HBD” posters around campus.
“Snow-blocking” another room’s window and The Great Breadstick War of 2017 might have caused some comradery amongst you.
Dressing up way too fancy for dinner Jet’s Pizza and a quick spin around Dillard’s.
Taking a homework break once every hour to watch a very self-controlled 25-minutes of Bridesmaids before getting back on the grind.
Rolling up to public events in twin outfits, coined by one roommate as “exact matchers,” or wearing goggles to particularly rainy track practices.
The sleuthing—to find the name of a recruit who might join the team and a particular address to which you sent a “Lawn Enforcement” puzzle in the mail—was worthy of frozen yogurt and air-high-fives all around.
The weekend where several of you caught the flu and had to fly home from a track meet together, feverish and aching as you limply lifted suitcases onto the security scanner might have brought you closer.
Or the walk you took together a few days later when you felt “a lot better,” but then realized after one mile that you both did NOT feel a lot better and had to sit on the side of the road resting [looking for four-leaf clovers] for thirty minutes before continuing.
One time the seven of you attempted to scare the Eighth One and catch the whole thing on video, but accidentally jumped the Eighth One in mid-clothes-change in the corner of the room.
Endless rounds of Dutch Blitz—all the hand slapping, mediocre trash-talking, “happy-hands-ing,” victory dancing—somehow that drew you together.
The Groupme messages celebrating the tiniest successes and mourning the biggest let-downs of the years.
The *hours* of testing out Snapchat filters to make sure they were ready for the rest of society to enjoy.
The creation of Mega-Bed and convincing others it was a worthwhile endeavor, too.
Family dinners, bus rides, homework sessions—even the ones in silence—thousands of miles run around the city—again, even the ones in silence—walks across campus, meetings, classes, chapel, devos.
You did it all together. Eight days of the week.
Like a sprinkling of snowflakes that at first looks inconsequential, but eventually fills up the yard and driveway and the street, the moments pile up until they’re undeniably significant.
It’s my experience that this is the way God works with us, too.
He brings people into our lives who say and do just the right thing at the right time to encourage us or redirect us, he shows us an incredible sunset or landscape or body of water, he enables us to do that thing we didn’t think we could do…and all of those little moments pile up to remind us of just how much he loves us. (And this is a perfect love, even better than that demonstrated by the roommates in the examples above ;))
In the Old Testament, we hear about believers receiving grandiose signs from God to guide them: Moses and the burning bush, a cloud leading the Israelites by day and night, the appearance of angels (even in the NT before the crucifixion, we read about angels visiting people to provide direction…).
And for a long time, I’ve thought they had it better than us.
As I’ve grappled with decisions over the last year, I’ve thought about how nice it’d be to have my very own burning stop sign or burning succulent or burning ice cream cone (something burning…I think I’d respond quickly to fire).
But in reading Priscilla Shirer's Discerning the Voice of God I realized the backwardness of my thinking. She explains that OT people “would’ve given their left arm for the 24/7, whole-life access to the Holy Spirit” that we have (pg. 42).
Only specific people in that day had the Holy Spirit with them for a specific period of time. We, on the other hand, have the Holy Spirit ALL THE TIME: constant access to God.
You might be an “outlier” or a “normal” person, like me, but either way, God loves you and me so much that he sent his son to the cross to die for our sins. He makes a place for you and me at His table and invites us into his kingdom.
He guides us and works in our hearts through little moments to make us more like his Son.
He loves us unconditionally.
And that, my friends, is the biggest outlier of them all.
Happy Valentine’s Day 😊
Good Reads (in no particular order):
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
A Man Called Ove (cried surprisingly hard at the end of this one) by Fredrik Backman
Britt Marie was Here by Fredrik Backman
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (a little gruesome for my liking, but you can cruise over those parts without missing the story) by Stieg Larsson
Educated by Tara Westover
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
On my shelf to read next:
Everybody Always by Bob Goff
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Pretty Dead by Anne Frasier
Read something lately that you LOVED? Head to the SERVICES page to hit me up with your book suggestions!!!
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