A few nights ago, I found myself literally mesmerized by an episode of the Animal Planet series, Fatal Attractions, a show about people who have exotic animals as pets. The program featured two people who kept venomous snakes in their homes. Both of these individuals had a long standing attraction to reptiles going back to childhood. To be brief, one of them got bitten by his pet Cobra and survived; the other one got bitten by her pet Gaboon Viper and died. (At this point, if you are like me, you are probably cringing at the mere thought of it). Like many people, I have an intense dislike of snakes. I get freaked out even looking at pictures of them. So, it was an odd and slightly twisted curiosity that I sat there, in my comfy socks and pajamas, watching a program about people who have the creepy creatures as pets. Honestly, I think I was freaked out to the point of passive, near-comatose viewing. But, by the end of it, I was actually starting to think, of all things, about destiny.
I wasn’t particularly surprised to learn that there are crazy people in the world, those whose judgment is so defunct that they have pets capable of killing them with a single bite, those who completely bypass the boundary of sanity by free handling lethal snakes. We live in a weird world. These things don’t really shock me. What intrigues me is that the fate of both of these people seemed eerily pre-determined. Both showed very clear signs early in life—by say, age five or six—that they had a near abnormal interest in reptiles. The families of both individuals indicated the early fascination with stories, photos of both children, holding various reptiles. They were ostracized and ridiculed for their hobby their entire lives. That childhood fascination morphed into an unnatural obsession for these individuals, and for one of them, the result was fatal. It is also interesting to note that both of them believed they were special, that they held some special ability to connect with these animals; the woman even believed she was immune to venom.
The whole story makes me wonder: Do people have a special calling, and what constitutes success in life? While I don’t believe that poor woman was put on earth for the sole purpose of picking up a poisonous snake, getting bitten, and dying, I do believe she had a unique tendency toward working with snakes. She was also somewhat of a snake expert. She had researched, studied and observed them her entire life. She was training for a job at the local zoo. Snakes were her simply her niche and it appeared to make her happy. She chose a field that she loved, made it her career, pursued it to her death. Success?
Did her destiny somehow originate in the way she was wired?
I am reminded of Phillipe Petit, a French daredevil who crossed between the Twin Towers on a high wire in 1974. Petit survived his stunt, only to be arrested for his actions. He went on to perform high wire acts throughout his life. He continues to give lectures and workshops on various topics, and he has received numerous accolades and awards. The man’s 1974 journey is featured in the 2008 documentary Man on Wire. It is one of the most fascinating films I’ve ever seen. I challenge anyone to watch it and not believe, wholeheartedly, in the concept of destiny by the end of the film. Petit was, without a doubt, meant to be the man who walked a wire hundreds of feet in the air, high above the streets of New York City. No one had ever done it. Most likely, no one else ever will. He had achieved his unique destiny. Had he fallen to his death, he would have still met that destiny, in another way. He would have still been the lone man on that wire.
I have thought a lot about this topic over the last few years. It is exciting to think about my own destiny, but that excitement is multiplied exponentially when I look at my children. It is exciting, but also daunting. What if my child was meant to do something I don’t particularly like? What if—God forbid—he was designed to do something dangerous? What if he was made to free solo rock climb, base jump, or build skyscrapers? How do I prepare my child for the area in which he will inherently succeed?
Is talent something we are born with it? Is it earned or learned? Probably a combination of things. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he introduces a concept he calls the 10,000 hour rule, which basically says that people who are really successful in anything have put in at least 10,000 hours doing it. To give you an idea how long that is, there are 8,760 hours in a year. If you played basketball for 24 hours straight, every day for 416.66 days, you would reach the 10,000 hour threshold. Realistically speaking, if you put in five hours a week playing basketball, it would take you thirty-eight years to reach the threshold. Double the number of hours per week, and you reach it in just under twenty years. For an eight year old kid to reach the threshold by the time he is twenty, he would have to put in a whopping 16 hours per week. While Gladwell writes about other factors that influence success, such as being in the right place at the right time, and inborn talents, he believes the 10,000 hour rule is a common denominator, demonstrated again and again in the careers of many successful athletes, business people, and entertainers. In other words, talent and success take a lot of hard work. We aren’t just born with it.
These concepts could revolutionize the way we educate our children. What if our kids had the opportunity, early in life, to develop in areas most suited to their interest and aptitude? My child has a strong interest in rocks, for instance. What if he could embark on and educational path custom fit with geology at the helm? What could he accomplish by the time he goes to college? If we espouse the notion that everyone has a unique calling, do we allow the hours and experience that, according to Gladwell, might seal the deal? How far do we go? Do we push one area to the neglect of others? Do we allow our children to pursue areas that we don’t particularly like or value?
The element of risk is astounding, isn’t it? We can put in 10,000 hours painting pictures that will never see the light of day, 10,000 hours climbing mountains, making sculptures, or studying rocks, and these activities may never earn us a dime. If our chosen area is a dangerous one, we may even die doing it, fall to our death doing what we love. And the only question that will remain—the $10,000 question—is this: Did we succeed?
-Melissa Dereberry
