The Trouble With Geniuses : Part 1 & 2

In my gifted and talented class, we are reading the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell . This book is basically about success, and how one can become successful . He talks a lot about advantages, especially with age, and he also talks about how you have to practice a certain amount of hours to really be 'good' at something .

In chapters 3 and 4, Gladwell talks a lot about Chris Langan, who is described as the 'Smartest Man on Earth', with an IQ of 195 . Einstein only had an IQ of 150 ... Langan had a rather difficult childhood and education in my opinion . He grew up to be smart, but even so, he dropped out of college twice . Once because his scholarship wasn't renewed, and the other was because the school was giving him a hard time . He later on became a bar bouncer, which I don't think many people would've predicted . For someone with an IQ like Langan's, it's definitely not something one would expect .

The question is asked though, "Is Chris Langan really successful ?", and in my opinion, he's pretty successful . Our class definition of 'successful' was : to maintain a balance between financial stability and happiness with self and others and to accomplish the goals you want to achieve . Langan may not have done all that he could've, but I think that he's definitely happy with where he is now . He's married, and he owns a farm, but he's still able to do what he loves . He's currently working on proving the existence of God . In a video that we watched in class, Langan said that he was happy with his life . I think that if he's content with the life that he's living, then he could be considered successful .

From these 2 chapters, I learned a lot about how background can affect a person . Chris Langan was held back by a lot of things that happened in his early life, like his scholarship getting taken away so he couldn't afford college . But I feel that if he still had the money to continue his years in college, he could have been farther in life than he is right now . I'm hoping to also do more of what I love, now that I've read this chapter . Though Langan loves what he does, Oppenheimer (Another 'genius' mentioned in the chapters) was not . He went through stages of depression in his life . I'm hoping that whatever I may do, that I'll really love what I'm doing, and always strive for greatness .