According to Malcolm Gladwell’s famous 10,000-Hour Rule from his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, the key to achieving world-class expertise in any skill is to work at something for a total of 10,000 hours.
Well, I have been me for way longer than 10,000 hours and I am still fucking terrible at it.
I am 23 years old. There’s 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, so that means I have been me for approximately 201,480 hours. I should have world-class expertise in being myself 20 times over. And if I made any math mistakes in that simple calculation, that’s my point.
Here’s an example: today I tried holding the door open for a cute girl walking into the same Starbucks as me and I hit myself in the face with the door. Do I sound like someone who has world-class expertise in the skill of being myself times 20? No. That sounds like someone who doesn’t even have the slightest control over their own body.
By Malcolm Gladwell’s standards for expertise, I should have opened the door and magically turned it into a bouquet of beautiful roses. Or, at the very least, I should have opened the door not into my own face like a normal human adult.
It is clear that the 10,000 hour rule is a LIE because I am NO EXPERT at being me.
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But let’s look on the flip side: here are some things I am an expert in despite doing them for fewer than 10,000 hours:
- Stepping on one last stair that does not exist and then falling onto the cold, sad ground.
- Calling people, “Mom” when they are not my mom or even someone I know.
- Staying up at night thinking about every embarrassing thing I have said since 4th grade.
- Saying my own name incorrectly when meeting new people.
- Getting a little dot of pee on my pants after using a urinal.
- Sitting in puddles.
So, screw you, Malcolm Gladwell and all the LIARS out there peddling this 10,000 hour BULLSHIT. I had to type up this article six times because I kept closing the document without saving.
Who was the last person you called, “Mom” who was not your mother? Let us know in the comments below!