10,000 Hours
Edison, Mozart, the Beatles, Steve Jobs, Nadal, Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, Warren Buffet, Kasparov… As you read these names many other famous individuals randomly come to mind. We admire them, and perhaps, we wonder what made them become what we are not in our respective fields of interests. Naturally, we would conclude it was due to their God-given talents!
Undoubtedly, talent and some luck are important to become successful. But does this mean we will have to resign ourselves to a mediocre role in life? Will life and success be dominated by some lucky fate, where a few will be up and the rest will be down? Isn’t God a bit unfair in the manner he distributes his gifts to mankind? And what’s the point of trying to be best, when it seems there will be others who will turn up better, and perhaps (ouch!), with less effort than we have to invest?
Externally, it may look seem so. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book “Outliers”, observes that success is mostly owed to talent, luck and very positive circumstances (i.e. a pretty good head start in academic or athletic life, exclusive access to certain education tools and information, and a supportive family, etc.) But he says that this isn’t all. Interestingly, he reveals that the success of many individuals, including most of those mentioned above, greatly depends on 10,000 hours.
In this case 10,000 hours is just another way of saying ‘practice makes perfect.’ Famous persons didn’t only have luck and talent they also had the passion to dedicate many hours to a particular skill. Ten thousand isn’t just a whimsical number. Gladwell calculates that mastering a particular skill required dedicating 10,000 hours, that is, some eight hours daily or a total of about TEN YEARS of constant practice.
Doesn’t this sound both so inspiring and challenging? We’re not that bad after all, and maybe success is just down the road if we give our activities the right time and passion. But there’s a catch: our famous artists and geniuses had already began dedicating themselves in what they’re good at now, at a young age. Lucky for them! Unlucky for us! With our present numerous family, social and professional obligations it would be almost next to impossible to find the same dedication in hours that cultural and academic icons achieved.
But ‘being left behind’ only holds true if we reduce success and fame to earthly, and worse, to mere material standards. The success man was made for is much higher and more fulfilling: man was made for Heaven. And the greatest failure that man can fall into is not getting there. The greatest success he can achieve is becoming a saint! And sanctity has no age limit but only has this life as its running timeframe.
This is why our Lord had set such a high goal for his disciples (meaning you and me), that ‘we should be perfect, as His Heavenly Father is perfect.’ This seems like an order too tall to achieve, and yet God would not settle for something less –because He mysteriously loves us so much– when it comes to man’s true success. And how exactly does Jesus propose that we achieve this success? Certainly, 10,000 hours is an infinitely small figure against the gift of eternal union and bliss with God.
Following our Lord’s teachings and examples, we realize that getting there isn’t a matter of time but matter of love. How can we not cease to marvel before the thief who ‘stole’ Heaven in only a few hours and words united with our Lord on the Cross? Surely, in this conversion that never ceases to move us, it is sufficient to learn that God is really only asking us for so little in exchange for something as much as eternity with Him.
I’m fond of illustrating the abysmal difference between God’s grace and our correspondence in the following way: imagine our Lord wants to give you a million dollars, but in exchange He asks for only a dollar.’ This example sounds like amusing and exaggerated, but we will give it a more serious treatment when we ponder on who we really are and realize that we have not even a dollar to give in exchange for God’s million. If we have one dollar, it had come from God in the first place. Here what really counts isn’t what we give, but why we give.
In our Lord’s edifying and attractive life, we see many occasions when a person’s small act of faith or service was transformed into something eternally valuable. St. Josemaría Escriva says: “a smile, a word, a gesture, a little bit of love is enough for him to pour out his grace bountifully.” (The Way of the Cross, Station V). Thus, for example, the praise of Jesus for widow’s last two mites, the woman who washed His feet with her tears, the woman who touched the fringe of His clothes, Mary’s choosing ‘the better part’ over Martha’s activism…and so on. In the end, it isn’t so much what and how much we do but the one thing necessary or in other words what we allow Him to do through and in us.
And the 10,000 hours? We may not even have that much time. We can only be sure to live today and now. Thus, we see the importance of a our smile for a neighbor, the effort to finish work down to the last detail, the sacrifice of not complaining or comparing ourselves with others…and many more that only hearts eternally in love can offer.
