In Hope Jahren’s memoir Lab Girl the author gives the reader the ability to experience everything she had to go through in the process of building herself; giving her strength for her to be able to obtain the career she wanted; like her overcoming multiple sexist boundaries, and emotional blockades. Not only, does Hope Jahren give the readers this experience but so does Susan Cain in her novel Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking; as she walks the reader through the mindset of an introvert’s journey as they must learn to overcome the many hurdles that society has thrown in front of these great minds.
In addition, to Jahren and Cain, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Shakespeare gives a different point of view of society’s generalization and the power of being an individual. These three authors give the readers completely different perspectives towards the way that a person can create themselves as they work towards a career that they want and not a career expected by society.
For many people, it may be a challenging path to pursue a career in mathematics because there is a higher competition and stress rate only at the beginning of the career because it is difficult to compete with people that have been on the field much longer than a fresh out of school alumni. Not only does the work become stressful but society has made many people believe that a career such as a Statistician or Statistical Analysis is a career that mostly wealthy men can succeed.
This Career is attainable if a person is really interested in mathematics all a person must do is earn a master’s degree in statistics or mathematics as a minimal requirement for most statistician jobs and the training is not required in order to get hired at a job. Statisticians occasionally travel in order to work with other team members. Statisticians often work in groups; they work with team members to set up surveys, research projects and oversee the collection of data.
Statisticians can work from home, yet for many people, it seems unattainable or unimportant because they are not aware of the immense impact statistics has on the growing industry. One of the greatest minds in physics well known for his work in physics; is also one of the greatest minds in statistical history although poorly known for his great work in statistics, Albert Einstein. Not many people know Einstein for his work in statistics nor the fact that he taught himself statistics.
When writing to the New York Times about his appreciation of a fellow Mathematician he wrote “Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. One seeks the most general ideas of operation which will bring together in simple, logical and unified form the largest possible circle of formal relationships. In this effort toward logical beauty spiritual formulas are discovered necessary for the deeper penetration into the laws of nature. ” Einstein refers to the fact that for someone who truly enjoys mathematics will think of it as art.
There are people that believe that society’s expectations are necessary when in fact that is not the truth; people should not second guess their own gifts in order to conform to society’s expectation. People with the ability to think of innovated ideas are often shy because they do not think on the same wavelength as society’s way of thinking, these people are classified as introverts. Introverts are often set aside because of their quiet tendencies.
For example, there have been many times that someone has told an introvert that they are not qualified for a certain job because they aren’t “communicative” or are too “shy”. Susan Cain quotes environmentalist Al Gore’s point of view on the benefits of introversion as she states “Gore acknowledges that his skills are not conducive to stumping and speechmaking. “Most people in politics draw energy from backslapping and shaking hands and all that,” he has said.
“I draw energy from discussing ideas. ” But combine that passion for thought with attention to subtletyboth common characteristics of introverts—and you get a very owerful mix” (Cain 150) Cain’s purpose in showing the reader Gore’s point of view showing the reader that rather than focusing on the attention that you are given focus on the subject at hand. Therefore, taking things one at a time and not focusing on the ego makes the person a much wiser character in any place. Many of the people that are successful often feed their self-importance instead of feeding the masses with knowledge. For example, the company American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) has bought many of their competitors and raised their prices.
Cain tells the reader that “Financial history is full of examples of players accelerating when they should be braking. Behavioral economists have long observed that executives buying companies can get so excited about beating out their competitors that they ignore signs that they’re overpaying. This happens so frequently that it has a name: “deal fever,” followed by “the winner’s curse. “‘ (Cain 157). By buying off companies or competition (wanting to please society) you end up losing sight of your own vision and ability to help people that surround you.
Being a winner and pleasing society makes a person lose sight of their initial purpose. There are many individuals that have experience xenophobia because they believe that other countries come secondary to their own country’s moral or practices. For example, Susan Cain differentiates that many of the morals of modern society often value different thing in different communities as she states, “It makes sense, then, that Westerners value boldness and verbal skill, traits that promote individuality, while Asians prize quiet, humility, and sensitivity, which foster group cohesion.
If you live in a collective, then things will go a lot more smoothly if you behave with restraint, even submission. ” (Cain 189). There are many things people can learn from different culture’s that will help advance the way everyone works together. Learning to build cross-culture relationships by investing time to learn about other cultures is one of the best gifts of life. Everyone has a certain perspective of the world and yet everyone assumes that heir life is worse than other people and often there are times that this self-pity brings an isolation factor in a person’s perspective. Hope Jahren had to deal with depression and isolation as she came across barriers while she was trying to pursue her career.
Jahren compares every situation in her life to science; an important aspect of her life, she states “Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life. (Jahren 19) Human beings are a species that do calculations based on assumptions yet more than often these assumptions are often wrong; it is better to investigate for yourself about yourself rather than other people. Everyone believes in faith as long as nothing challenging comes their way because as soon as something that requires a change comes along people begin to question both their reason for existing and the reason for such a situation.
Jahren had a similar situation which lasted a while throughout her life but she shares the wisdom she learned, when she states “Every object in my lab – no matter how small or misshapen-exists for a reason, even if it’s purpose has not been yet found” (Jahren 19) Just like everything has a reason for existing everyone has a reason for existing. The harsh truth is that everything happens for a reason even the most insignificant situation is placed in your life to bring you to the realization of the true strength inside everyone.
Some people believe that everyone is different went the reality is that everyone is the same but they all have different situations. Such situations often cause self-pity or greed even with the kindest of hearts. Shakespeare states that from the very beginning everyone is the same, he writes “When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools” Nothing can be generalized everyone is different and at a point in everyone’s life that they break down into tears as their world comes crashing down.
There are two types of people there are many people that only talk about the actions they will do but never truly do anything that they speak about; then, there are people that don’t talk about the things they will do they rather put their actions to work. Nowadays people are more likely to be unreliable because all they do is speak and not act upon their words. In the play, King Lear Shakespeare states “Nothing will come of nothing: speak again. ” He refers to the fact that without any action there is no change.
The inverse of the Domino effect, this being the idea that states if nothing happens then the result is nothing. In conclusion, Statistics is one of the most valuable careers in the modern society because it does not require any special attributes other than the interest in mathematics. There are many people that let society tell them what they must do. People often follow the masses instead of standing their ground and standing alone. Everyone has their own attribute and must shine through their own spotlight.