Reading "Ain't So Bad After All... Sometimes.

Reading was never my forte (if thats how you spell it) I mean I'm okay with reading when its on my time, but when I'm forced to read... thats a different story. So as you can expect when I was told that I would have to read AND RESPOND to a couple of website posts about thinking and whatnot, I was a little turned off. But I found one of the articles we had to read pretty interesting. It was entitled "10,000 Hours for Success" The gist of the story was that to achieve "excellence" at a particular task a minimum of 10,000 hours over your life span must be spent practicing and perfecting the task itself. I found that idea really interesting. Also the theory that "O nce you have enough talent to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works". (I'll leave a link of where the information came from at the bottom of the blog.) But i just found it interesting that they have set a specific amount of time in which once you have came to or surpassed your considered "excellent at or even a genius at that specific task". I mean I consider the idea of spending the 10,000 hours would make you great at the task, but there has to be a certain amount of sheer skill that is needed to make you "excellent" at the task. But who knows, maybe through spending that amount of time working at the task you "become" great at the task. 
I began to ponder how many hours a day people spend listening to music or playing a video game or even texting, I mean accumulatively there have to be people out there that spend dedicated time to doing such things but I still dont feel that they should be considered "a texting genius" or something of the sort.
I think the time can't just be spent doing the task but it has to be dedicated time to getting BETTER at the task. For example: tons of people play video games, but lots of people only play video games for fun; not to get better, not to become a master at it, just for fun. So I feel that if your just playing for fun and you play way past 10,000 hours you may get better but wont be considered excellent. While on the other hand there are people out there that will genuinely set aside time for them to practice and attempt to become better at playing that specific video game, and if all of those 10,000 hours are spent attempting to become better and trying to become the best than by the time they are finished I feel like they would be considered that "excellent gamer" "gaming genius".


link to website: http://abundance-blog.marelisa-online.com/2008/11/17/outliers-10000-hours-for-success/

-Captain DJ

-College Superhero