Lily Silver e Stairs of Success

e Stairs of Success

Lily Silver

When you Google “success,” the rst image to appear is someone climbing a staircase and triumphantly reaching the top. If I was to use this same metaphor for my personal success, what would the top stair be? I could highlight my academic, athletic, or artistic accomplishments, but I believe my metaphorical ascent has focused more on the development of my identity. Now that we know what my landing is, what are my stairs? I’ve needed these stairs because as Malcolm Gladwell argues in Outliers, innate ability does not guarantee success. ese are my family’s value of education, being born in a generation that is more informed, and my culture in Judaism, giving me increased advantages in my growth and learning to help me move towards my top stair.

As a child, I listened to the news almost every day, with broadcasts being a constant background noise in my house. is was my parents’ attempt to breed my curiosity and a love for learning, and it worked. However, the emphasis on education is not surprising, as both my parents worked at a liberal arts college, and I was raised around academics. My childhood exempli ed “concerted cultivation,” a parenting style that Gladwell claims o ers signi cant advantages. Gladwell leverages a study by Annette Lareau exploring di erent parenting

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styles that connect to socioeconomic status to understand these advantages, where the example of a middle-class family looks very similar to my own. Lareau states that the middle-class families were “heavily involved in their children’s free time”; similarly, my parents spent their days ushering me from sports, to music lessons, and after-school programs. e middle-class parents also expected their children to “negotiate” and “to question adults in authority”; my parents rewarded me for speaking up and questioning rather than remaining passive. According to Gladwell, when wealthier children are struggling in school, parents “intervened on behalf of their kids”; and I always knew that if I needed something my parents would go to teachers, to principals, and anyone in between to get me help. is “social savvy” that my parents taught me has given me independence and dictates who I am today. I don’t struggle to have di cult conversations with authority or share my opinion and perspective. If my parents hadn’t listened to the news with me, representing their priority for education, I wouldn’t be as conscious of the world, understand my privilege, or be as independent. My success in developing into the person I am, and the person I am proud to be, depended greatly on the opportunities that my parents gave me, the opportunities I didn’t even realize I was getting.

Despite the advantages my parents o ered me, my success is also attributed to my generation. As Gladwell argues, the “possibility” and “opportunities” for success come from what “our particular place in history presents us with”. Just like Gladwell’s example of Jewish lawyers who were successful partly because of demographics, I have had endless opportunities to interact socially and foster my curiosity because of the internet. ere are more opportunities to connect with others who live very di erent lives than mine, which has given me even more possibilities for learning than my parents could o er. e internet has also forced me to become a solid person and know

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my limits and abilities, as it can be a place where hate is easily spread, and in order to not be swept up, I need to present myself and my ideas purposefully. I have participated in social activism, developed my values at an early age, and learned how to determine my own opinion because of the internet. Gladwell demonstrates that demographics can also render success as even people with “the best of family lessons, cannot escape the limitations of their generation.” Having information constantly at your disposal can be overwhelming, which has taught me to set limits and understand that everything you consume isn’t always real. Without these lessons, I wouldn’t be as grounded, or know my personal boundaries at such a young age.

Gladwell argues that cultural legacies are “powerful forces” that “persist generation after generation, virtually intact”. My cultural legacy is rooted in the concept of “Tikkun Olam,” a Hebrew phrase meaning “to repair the world”. Similar to the examples in Outliers, my ancestors immigrated from Eastern Europe and were garment workers during the peak of the industry. While this was a demanding industry to be a part of, Gladwell establishes that this di cult work demonstrated to immigrants, and their descendants the “miracle of meaningful work”. eir grueling time in the garment factory left behind a cultural legacy; one that tells young people like me that “through [my] own powers of persuasion and initiative,” I can have control over my success. is “culture” and “family history” “gave [me] the greatest” “opportunities” to develop con dence and a hard work ethic. Gladwell was right; cultural legacies do have a signi cant in uence on behavior, and success, but what he didn’t realize is that my ancestors were a prime example of “Tikkun Olam’’; they repaired their world and the story of their success, at a time when they were set up to fail. Rhetorically, this moment appeals to logos because it enables Gladwell to draw on rst hand anecdotes of Jewish garment workers, solidifying the logical argument that meaningful work is central to

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