TABE Reading Practice Test: Level A

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

The Spark that Lit the Fire

(1) On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a construction worker from Los Angeles, was driving along California State Route 210 with two friends when police moved to pull him over. King, by his own admission, was on the way home from drinking at a friend’s house and had been drinking. In an attempt to avoid the consequences of driving under the influence, King led the police on a high-speed chase. When King chose to leave the freeway and continue to flee from the police on residential streets, several more police cars and even a police helicopter joined the chase. After about 8 miles of chasing King, the police were successfully able to corner his car and force King to surrender.

(2) It is at this moment that the controversy began. King’s two friends, both African American males, got out of the car, and by their own accounts, were mistreated by police officers. Bryant Allen claims he was beaten and stomped as he lay on the ground; Freddie Helms ended up with a cut on his head. King, an African American man himself, was reluctant to get out of the car, and when he finally did, LAPD officers swarmed him and used force to try to subdue him. A man in a nearby apartment heard the commotion and began filming the incident on a camcorder. The video footage begins with King already on the ground, and shows LAPD officers stomping King, beating him with batons, and generally using an amount of force unnecessary to subdue a man who was already on the ground.

(3) King went to the hospital, and four of the officers involved in the incident were charged with assault and use of excessive force. Despite the video clearly showing these officers beating King, the four officers were essentially acquitted of their charges. Jurors acquitted all four officers on assault charges and while they only acquitted three of the officers on charges of excessive force, they were unable to reach a decision on the fourth.

(4) The Rodney King incident was not an isolated incident; it became a very public display of a problem that African Americans had been struggling with for a long time: the police’s mistreatment of people of color. When word reached the streets of Los Angeles that these four officers had been acquitted, the community exploded. This verdict sparked the infamous LA riots, which lasted 6 days, caused 63 deaths, damaged thousands of businesses and reportedly caused almost $1 billion in financial losses. The people of Los Angeles had had enough of police abusing them and getting away with it. Police brutality is still a problem today, and all because Rodney King’s abusers went free.

Saving the Environment

(1) Preserving the environment is a monumental task, and people often have difficulty seeing the connection between what they do and the global problem. Considering how massive the problem is, shaming someone for not recycling a bottle is like yelling at someone for adding a drop of water to a flood. That one bottle is not going to ruin the environment, but 7 billion bottles will. It is certainly important for each citizen to do their part to help improve the world, but too often the onus of environmental preservation is thrust upon the least culpable offenders. Why is our attention so often focused on the daily impact of ordinary citizens rather than the corporations who are doing infinitely more harm every day?

(2) A study called the Carbon Majors Report, conducted in 2015, identified just 100 companies as responsible for 71% of global emissions. These companies are doing far more damage to the environment than average citizens, but America continues to pass legislation that softens environmental protections, allowing companies to continue striving for profit over the health of our globe. While allowing these companies to operate free of restrictions might cause a small uptick in employment, that is a very shortsighted reward considering the consequences.

(3) Governments allow these companies to continue to poison our globe while they demonize the average citizen for their minimal contribution to the problem, or worse: deny that the problem even exists. Problems don’t go away because you ignore them, and until companies are held responsible for their destructive emissions, things are only going to get worse.

(4) Perhaps the most frustrating part of our environmental woes is that the majority of the “problem” companies are invested in industries that could easily be on their way out, like coal and crude oil. Instead of pivoting and investing in new fuels, new energy sources, etc., these companies continue to bank on a dying industry. Scientists have made a lot of progress in clean energy and power, but until companies are willing to make real adjustments, we’re stuck in the stone age pumping our atmosphere full of poisons.

(5) The only way we can force companies to strive for real environmental preservation is if we continue fighting for legislation that compels them to do so. Instead of just asking average citizens to put their water bottles in a recycling bin, we can ask them to also vote with this issue in mind. Elect the right officials who will create and adopt the right legislation that will force companies to act responsibly. The fate of the globe depends on it.

Saving the Environment

(1) Preserving the environment is a monumental task, and people often have difficulty seeing the connection between what they do and the global problem. Considering how massive the problem is, shaming someone for not recycling a bottle is like yelling at someone for adding a drop of water to a flood. That one bottle is not going to ruin the environment, but 7 billion bottles will. It is certainly important for each citizen to do their part to help improve the world, but too often the onus of environmental preservation is thrust upon the least culpable offenders. Why is our attention so often focused on the daily impact of ordinary citizens rather than the corporations who are doing infinitely more harm every day?

(2) A study called the Carbon Majors Report, conducted in 2015, identified just 100 companies as responsible for 71% of global emissions. These companies are doing far more damage to the environment than average citizens, but America continues to pass legislation that softens environmental protections, allowing companies to continue striving for profit over the health of our globe. While allowing these companies to operate free of restrictions might cause a small uptick in employment, that is a very shortsighted reward considering the consequences.

(3) Governments allow these companies to continue to poison our globe while they demonize the average citizen for their minimal contribution to the problem, or worse: deny that the problem even exists. Problems don’t go away because you ignore them, and until companies are held responsible for their destructive emissions, things are only going to get worse.

(4) Perhaps the most frustrating part of our environmental woes is that the majority of the “problem” companies are invested in industries that could easily be on their way out, like coal and crude oil. Instead of pivoting and investing in new fuels, new energy sources, etc., these companies continue to bank on a dying industry. Scientists have made a lot of progress in clean energy and power, but until companies are willing to make real adjustments, we’re stuck in the stone age pumping our atmosphere full of poisons.

(5) The only way we can force companies to strive for real environmental preservation is if we continue fighting for legislation that compels them to do so. Instead of just asking average citizens to put their water bottles in a recycling bin, we can ask them to also vote with this issue in mind. Elect the right officials who will create and adopt the right legislation that will force companies to act responsibly. The fate of the globe depends on it.

Saving the Environment

(1) Preserving the environment is a monumental task, and people often have difficulty seeing the connection between what they do and the global problem. Considering how massive the problem is, shaming someone for not recycling a bottle is like yelling at someone for adding a drop of water to a flood. That one bottle is not going to ruin the environment, but 7 billion bottles will. It is certainly important for each citizen to do their part to help improve the world, but too often the onus of environmental preservation is thrust upon the least culpable offenders. Why is our attention so often focused on the daily impact of ordinary citizens rather than the corporations who are doing infinitely more harm every day?

(2) A study called the Carbon Majors Report, conducted in 2015, identified just 100 companies as responsible for 71% of global emissions. These companies are doing far more damage to the environment than average citizens, but America continues to pass legislation that softens environmental protections, allowing companies to continue striving for profit over the health of our globe. While allowing these companies to operate free of restrictions might cause a small uptick in employment, that is a very shortsighted reward considering the consequences.

(3) Governments allow these companies to continue to poison our globe while they demonize the average citizen for their minimal contribution to the problem, or worse: deny that the problem even exists. Problems don’t go away because you ignore them, and until companies are held responsible for their destructive emissions, things are only going to get worse.

(4) Perhaps the most frustrating part of our environmental woes is that the majority of the “problem” companies are invested in industries that could easily be on their way out, like coal and crude oil. Instead of pivoting and investing in new fuels, new energy sources, etc., these companies continue to bank on a dying industry. Scientists have made a lot of progress in clean energy and power, but until companies are willing to make real adjustments, we’re stuck in the stone age pumping our atmosphere full of poisons.

(5) The only way we can force companies to strive for real environmental preservation is if we continue fighting for legislation that compels them to do so. Instead of just asking average citizens to put their water bottles in a recycling bin, we can ask them to also vote with this issue in mind. Elect the right officials who will create and adopt the right legislation that will force companies to act responsibly. The fate of the globe depends on it.

Saving the Environment

(1) Preserving the environment is a monumental task, and people often have difficulty seeing the connection between what they do and the global problem. Considering how massive the problem is, shaming someone for not recycling a bottle is like yelling at someone for adding a drop of water to a flood. That one bottle is not going to ruin the environment, but 7 billion bottles will. It is certainly important for each citizen to do their part to help improve the world, but too often the onus of environmental preservation is thrust upon the least culpable offenders. Why is our attention so often focused on the daily impact of ordinary citizens rather than the corporations who are doing infinitely more harm every day?

(2) A study called the Carbon Majors Report, conducted in 2015, identified just 100 companies as responsible for 71% of global emissions. These companies are doing far more damage to the environment than average citizens, but America continues to pass legislation that softens environmental protections, allowing companies to continue striving for profit over the health of our globe. While allowing these companies to operate free of restrictions might cause a small uptick in employment, that is a very shortsighted reward considering the consequences.

(3) Governments allow these companies to continue to poison our globe while they demonize the average citizen for their minimal contribution to the problem, or worse: deny that the problem even exists. Problems don’t go away because you ignore them, and until companies are held responsible for their destructive emissions, things are only going to get worse.

(4) Perhaps the most frustrating part of our environmental woes is that the majority of the “problem” companies are invested in industries that could easily be on their way out, like coal and crude oil. Instead of pivoting and investing in new fuels, new energy sources, etc., these companies continue to bank on a dying industry. Scientists have made a lot of progress in clean energy and power, but until companies are willing to make real adjustments, we’re stuck in the stone age pumping our atmosphere full of poisons.

(5) The only way we can force companies to strive for real environmental preservation is if we continue fighting for legislation that compels them to do so. Instead of just asking average citizens to put their water bottles in a recycling bin, we can ask them to also vote with this issue in mind. Elect the right officials who will create and adopt the right legislation that will force companies to act responsibly. The fate of the globe depends on it.

Saving the Environment

(1) Preserving the environment is a monumental task, and people often have difficulty seeing the connection between what they do and the global problem. Considering how massive the problem is, shaming someone for not recycling a bottle is like yelling at someone for adding a drop of water to a flood. That one bottle is not going to ruin the environment, but 7 billion bottles will. It is certainly important for each citizen to do their part to help improve the world, but too often the onus of environmental preservation is thrust upon the least culpable offenders. Why is our attention so often focused on the daily impact of ordinary citizens rather than the corporations who are doing infinitely more harm every day?

(2) A study called the Carbon Majors Report, conducted in 2015, identified just 100 companies as responsible for 71% of global emissions. These companies are doing far more damage to the environment than average citizens, but America continues to pass legislation that softens environmental protections, allowing companies to continue striving for profit over the health of our globe. While allowing these companies to operate free of restrictions might cause a small uptick in employment, that is a very shortsighted reward considering the consequences.

(3) Governments allow these companies to continue to poison our globe while they demonize the average citizen for their minimal contribution to the problem, or worse: deny that the problem even exists. Problems don’t go away because you ignore them, and until companies are held responsible for their destructive emissions, things are only going to get worse.

(4) Perhaps the most frustrating part of our environmental woes is that the majority of the “problem” companies are invested in industries that could easily be on their way out, like coal and crude oil. Instead of pivoting and investing in new fuels, new energy sources, etc., these companies continue to bank on a dying industry. Scientists have made a lot of progress in clean energy and power, but until companies are willing to make real adjustments, we’re stuck in the stone age pumping our atmosphere full of poisons.

(5) The only way we can force companies to strive for real environmental preservation is if we continue fighting for legislation that compels them to do so. Instead of just asking average citizens to put their water bottles in a recycling bin, we can ask them to also vote with this issue in mind. Elect the right officials who will create and adopt the right legislation that will force companies to act responsibly. The fate of the globe depends on it.

Saving the Environment

(1) Preserving the environment is a monumental task, and people often have difficulty seeing the connection between what they do and the global problem. Considering how massive the problem is, shaming someone for not recycling a bottle is like yelling at someone for adding a drop of water to a flood. That one bottle is not going to ruin the environment, but 7 billion bottles will. It is certainly important for each citizen to do their part to help improve the world, but too often the onus of environmental preservation is thrust upon the least culpable offenders. Why is our attention so often focused on the daily impact of ordinary citizens rather than the corporations who are doing infinitely more harm every day?

(2) A study called the Carbon Majors Report, conducted in 2015, identified just 100 companies as responsible for 71% of global emissions. These companies are doing far more damage to the environment than average citizens, but America continues to pass legislation that softens environmental protections, allowing companies to continue striving for profit over the health of our globe. While allowing these companies to operate free of restrictions might cause a small uptick in employment, that is a very shortsighted reward considering the consequences.

(3) Governments allow these companies to continue to poison our globe while they demonize the average citizen for their minimal contribution to the problem, or worse: deny that the problem even exists. Problems don’t go away because you ignore them, and until companies are held responsible for their destructive emissions, things are only going to get worse.

(4) Perhaps the most frustrating part of our environmental woes is that the majority of the “problem” companies are invested in industries that could easily be on their way out, like coal and crude oil. Instead of pivoting and investing in new fuels, new energy sources, etc., these companies continue to bank on a dying industry. Scientists have made a lot of progress in clean energy and power, but until companies are willing to make real adjustments, we’re stuck in the stone age pumping our atmosphere full of poisons.

(5) The only way we can force companies to strive for real environmental preservation is if we continue fighting for legislation that compels them to do so. Instead of just asking average citizens to put their water bottles in a recycling bin, we can ask them to also vote with this issue in mind. Elect the right officials who will create and adopt the right legislation that will force companies to act responsibly. The fate of the globe depends on it.

Saving the Environment

(1) Preserving the environment is a monumental task, and people often have difficulty seeing the connection between what they do and the global problem. Considering how massive the problem is, shaming someone for not recycling a bottle is like yelling at someone for adding a drop of water to a flood. That one bottle is not going to ruin the environment, but 7 billion bottles will. It is certainly important for each citizen to do their part to help improve the world, but too often the onus of environmental preservation is thrust upon the least culpable offenders. Why is our attention so often focused on the daily impact of ordinary citizens rather than the corporations who are doing infinitely more harm every day?

(2) A study called the Carbon Majors Report, conducted in 2015, identified just 100 companies as responsible for 71% of global emissions. These companies are doing far more damage to the environment than average citizens, but America continues to pass legislation that softens environmental protections, allowing companies to continue striving for profit over the health of our globe. While allowing these companies to operate free of restrictions might cause a small uptick in employment, that is a very shortsighted reward considering the consequences.

(3) Governments allow these companies to continue to poison our globe while they demonize the average citizen for their minimal contribution to the problem, or worse: deny that the problem even exists. Problems don’t go away because you ignore them, and until companies are held responsible for their destructive emissions, things are only going to get worse.

(4) Perhaps the most frustrating part of our environmental woes is that the majority of the “problem” companies are invested in industries that could easily be on their way out, like coal and crude oil. Instead of pivoting and investing in new fuels, new energy sources, etc., these companies continue to bank on a dying industry. Scientists have made a lot of progress in clean energy and power, but until companies are willing to make real adjustments, we’re stuck in the stone age pumping our atmosphere full of poisons.

(5) The only way we can force companies to strive for real environmental preservation is if we continue fighting for legislation that compels them to do so. Instead of just asking average citizens to put their water bottles in a recycling bin, we can ask them to also vote with this issue in mind. Elect the right officials who will create and adopt the right legislation that will force companies to act responsibly. The fate of the globe depends on it.

Saving the Environment

(1) Preserving the environment is a monumental task, and people often have difficulty seeing the connection between what they do and the global problem. Considering how massive the problem is, shaming someone for not recycling a bottle is like yelling at someone for adding a drop of water to a flood. That one bottle is not going to ruin the environment, but 7 billion bottles will. It is certainly important for each citizen to do their part to help improve the world, but too often the onus of environmental preservation is thrust upon the least culpable offenders. Why is our attention so often focused on the daily impact of ordinary citizens rather than the corporations who are doing infinitely more harm every day?

(2) A study called the Carbon Majors Report, conducted in 2015, identified just 100 companies as responsible for 71% of global emissions. These companies are doing far more damage to the environment than average citizens, but America continues to pass legislation that softens environmental protections, allowing companies to continue striving for profit over the health of our globe. While allowing these companies to operate free of restrictions might cause a small uptick in employment, that is a very shortsighted reward considering the consequences.

(3) Governments allow these companies to continue to poison our globe while they demonize the average citizen for their minimal contribution to the problem, or worse: deny that the problem even exists. Problems don’t go away because you ignore them, and until companies are held responsible for their destructive emissions, things are only going to get worse.

(4) Perhaps the most frustrating part of our environmental woes is that the majority of the “problem” companies are invested in industries that could easily be on their way out, like coal and crude oil. Instead of pivoting and investing in new fuels, new energy sources, etc., these companies continue to bank on a dying industry. Scientists have made a lot of progress in clean energy and power, but until companies are willing to make real adjustments, we’re stuck in the stone age pumping our atmosphere full of poisons.

(5) The only way we can force companies to strive for real environmental preservation is if we continue fighting for legislation that compels them to do so. Instead of just asking average citizens to put their water bottles in a recycling bin, we can ask them to also vote with this issue in mind. Elect the right officials who will create and adopt the right legislation that will force companies to act responsibly. The fate of the globe depends on it.

Saving the Environment

(1) Preserving the environment is a monumental task, and people often have difficulty seeing the connection between what they do and the global problem. Considering how massive the problem is, shaming someone for not recycling a bottle is like yelling at someone for adding a drop of water to a flood. That one bottle is not going to ruin the environment, but 7 billion bottles will. It is certainly important for each citizen to do their part to help improve the world, but too often the onus of environmental preservation is thrust upon the least culpable offenders. Why is our attention so often focused on the daily impact of ordinary citizens rather than the corporations who are doing infinitely more harm every day?

(2) A study called the Carbon Majors Report, conducted in 2015, identified just 100 companies as responsible for 71% of global emissions. These companies are doing far more damage to the environment than average citizens, but America continues to pass legislation that softens environmental protections, allowing companies to continue striving for profit over the health of our globe. While allowing these companies to operate free of restrictions might cause a small uptick in employment, that is a very shortsighted reward considering the consequences.

(3) Governments allow these companies to continue to poison our globe while they demonize the average citizen for their minimal contribution to the problem, or worse: deny that the problem even exists. Problems don’t go away because you ignore them, and until companies are held responsible for their destructive emissions, things are only going to get worse.

(4) Perhaps the most frustrating part of our environmental woes is that the majority of the “problem” companies are invested in industries that could easily be on their way out, like coal and crude oil. Instead of pivoting and investing in new fuels, new energy sources, etc., these companies continue to bank on a dying industry. Scientists have made a lot of progress in clean energy and power, but until companies are willing to make real adjustments, we’re stuck in the stone age pumping our atmosphere full of poisons.

(5) The only way we can force companies to strive for real environmental preservation is if we continue fighting for legislation that compels them to do so. Instead of just asking average citizens to put their water bottles in a recycling bin, we can ask them to also vote with this issue in mind. Elect the right officials who will create and adopt the right legislation that will force companies to act responsibly. The fate of the globe depends on it.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.

Defining Success

(1) In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell challenged our understanding of successful people. We tend to look at successful people, he noted, as freaks of nature, people who are so intelligent, or skilled, or talented that they were destined for success. Gladwell’s book, however, argued that this is a superficial understanding of what it takes to be successful. For someone to be successful, they have to have intelligence, skill, and/or talent. But for someone to find the kind of success that Bill Gates has found, or that The Beatles have found, a lot of other factors have to fall into place. Where you are born, when you are born, your cultural legacy, and a myriad of other factors have to line up for you to truly be what Gladwell refers to as “an outlier.” With examples of people all around us that have benefitted greatly from their circumstances, why do we still like to think of successful people as different than us, people destined for success because of their other-worldly intelligence or talent? The explanation for this mental block we seem to have against understanding what leads a person to success is both simple and tragic.

(2) The real reason we like to look at wildly successful people as “others,” people deserving of a success we could never hope to achieve because we lack whatever they have, is because this makes it easier for us to reconcile our own lack of success. In simpler terms, we would rather think that these people have something we don’t have than that we could have achieved their success under different circumstances. This is really a depressing theory about the way we think, not only because it reveals how far we will go to protect our pride, but also because it directly hinders us from finding the kind of success that we idolize. When we decide that a goal is unattainable right from the start, we more easily justify our own inaction.

(3) Accepting defeat right from the start only ensures that we will never find success. In this sense, Gladwell’s theories are both supportive and discouraging. While Gladwell argues that immensely successful people do not possess some other-worldly abilities, he also posits that all types of factors need to line up for someone to achieve this level of success. In this way, his theory is encouraging because it means that many of us have the potential to achieve great success, but it is discouraging in that our success is still out of our control. In his book, Gladwell discusses Bill Gates as he was growing up. Yes, he was a very intelligent young man, but the level of his success is just as much a product of Gates growing up at a time when computer programming was just becoming possible, living in a place where he had access to a computer that could program, and all the other factors that went right for him. If a child is born right now with all the same inherent intelligence as Bill Gates and potential for computer programming, she isn’t likely to reach his level of success because he was there at the beginning. It’s like the difference between buying stock in Apple right now and buying stock in Apple 30 years ago. Bill Gates was learning programming before anyone realized how valuable it was, and that’s why he isn’t just a good programmer with a good job. What we sometimes forget, though, is that success is not black and white. That good programmer with a good job is successful even if she never reaches the kind of success that Bill Gates has achieved.

(4) Our natural inclination to put things into schemas and turn everything into dichotomous groups keeps us not only from finding success in our lives, but from understanding when we have achieved success. People don’t belong in groups where Bill Gates is successful and anyone who makes less money than him is unsuccessful. There are studies that show that happiness isn’t tied to this kind of success. In a well-publicized study, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman posited that a person’s happiness increases as his income increases, but only until he earns about $75,000 a year; after that, returns begin to diminish. In other words, we can attribute success to income, but is there any indication that Bill Gates is happier than someone with a good job and a good income? Once we start realizing that we can be successful even if we aren’t rich and famous, we will live much happier lives. We may not all have the specific opportunities that someone like Bill Gates has, but we all have the ability to achieve success as long as we maintain a reasonable definition of the word.