The Careers I Will Pursue

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell says that for us to succeed in something, we need to have practiced it for 10,000 hours. How Gladwell came up with that figure is something I am yet to understand. Perhaps he was trying to imitate Jesus.

You see, when apostle Peter asked Jesus how many times we should forgive our brothers, Jesus said it should be 70x7 times which equals 490 times. He must have come up with that big figure because He knew if we start counting the sins our brothers commit against us, we will get bored of counting by the time we reach like the 35th sin and just decide to forgive as many times as possible. Or maybe He was smart enough to know that by the time we forgive our brothers for like the 52nd time, they will have already turned into good men.

Coming back to Malcom Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule of success, I tend to believe in that figure even though I am yet to understand how he came up with it. Ask anyone who has genuinely succeeded in any career and they will tell you how they spent a considerable amount of time honing their skills.

Actually, in addition to the two reasons I pointed out in my previous story on this blog on why I gave up venturing into politics, not meeting the Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour-rule required to succeed in politics is why I have concluded I wasn't hardwired to be a politician. I didn't even hold any leadership position during my schooling years.

After reflecting on my life so far, I have figured out the talents I have spent considerable amount of time working on. They are music, public speaking and writing.

I began learning to play the piano in 1997 when I was nine under the tutelage of a brilliant and dedicated seminarian named Br. Peter Assenga. During my years Starehe Boys' Centre where I had my high school and college education, I continued honing my skills on the piano and developed confidence of playing the instrument before an audience.

As a boy, I also took an interest in public speaking. When I was ten, I loved to mentally rehearse narrating a story I had heard on TV. I eventually narrated the story at school on one afternoon to, well, not a real audience but columns of unoccupied desks in a classroom. But I still enjoyed the experience.

At Starehe, I had the opportunities of delivering speeches to a real audience. I gave speeches right from when I was in Form 1 to when I was in my final year in college at the school. Since leaving Starehe, I haven't had many opportunities to hone my public speaking skills but I am looking forward to becoming a sought-after speaker.

Besides piano-playing and public speaking, the other talent I have shown an interest in is writing. I penned compositions for my father to review when I was eight. But it's not until recent years that I have treated my writing talent seriously. This lovely blog of mine is a testament to that effort. Boy, haven't I come to enjoy writing!

Bill Clinton mentioned in his memoir that choosing a career is like choosing a wife from ten girlfriends; even if you choose the most beautiful and the most intelligent, there is always the pain of losing the other nine. For me, writing has been all those other nine girlfriends rolled into one.

Having figured out the talents I have spent considerable amount of time working on, I am firmly convinced that God intended me for the tranquil pursuit of a career in music, public speaking and writing by availing me opportunities to develop those talents and by making them my supreme delight. How glad I am to have started pursuing that career through blogging!