I started reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Believe it or not, this is the first book I picked up by him.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised how entertaining the book themes are - everybody likes a good story tied in with social science research. For me personally though, the first few chapters clarified why I feel so lucky.
Even since I saw this talk by Saron Yitbarek, I tried to understand what made me so fortunate. Because, well, I feel pretty fortunate. It’s a good life phylosophy, but the issue is that I believed that every single event and circumstance was a blessing (in retrospect, of course). Now I can single out one aspect that is more important than others.
I was born in 1990 in Moldova, as the Soviet Union was about to collapse. By the time I was in my early 20s, the borders were open enough to travel, study and live abroad.
Would I have been born too early (I’m thinking 20-30 years earlier), it might have been challenging to part ways with the old world and build a new life. I probably wouldn’t have had the same resources or need to learn foreign languages. I wouldn’t have traveled to Europe for fun. I wouldn’t have stumbled upon software engineering or had the opportunity to pursue a fruitful career in this domain. If I were to be born later, no idea what would have happened, as the history is still unfolding.
I’m not an outlier, I’m ok with a local maxima. But given the place, I showed up at a pretty good time.
I know that ‘60-70s would have been a perfect time for some, but given my business ignorance, I probably would have missed the opportunity.