The Art of Failure – for English class

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The Art of Failure – for English class

Introduction

The article, The Art of Failure by Malcolm Gladwell, is about the difference between chocking and panicking. The two words may seem to contain the same meaning but they are actually very different. Additionally, Gladwell has talked about conventional failure and paradoxical failure by using panicking and chocking. In the process of defining the different words, the author has come up with some cases to show how the words can be used in some situations. It is through this situation, Gladwell has indicated some causes of accidents may be because of panicking while others may be because of choking. Therefore, the main ideas Gladwell is trying to communicate to the readers revolve around the difference between panicking and chocking.

Discussion

            In differentiating the two words, panicking and choking, Gladwell has defined conventional failure and paradoxical failure. The author has compared panicking to conventional failure because it usually occurs because of lack of enough experience or proper training on a particular job. In conventional failure, a personal tends to panicking because he or she does not know what to do due to lack of the technical experience. According to Gladwell, what usually happen is that adrenaline takes it course the person does what he or she thinks will save him or her. In the process, the person tends to think too little of the consequences about what would be logical for him or her so that he or she can survive. In contrast to this, paradoxical failure is exhibited as somebody chocks and fails to perform as expected. According to Gladwell, in paradoxical failure, the person tends to think too much and as a result, he or she looses the instincts. This means that the person may have enough experience but due to choking, it leads paradoxical failure. For instance, the author has used the example of about the death of J. F Kennedy Junior and Novotna. Kennedy died in a plane crash because of panicking. This is because he lacked experience. This means there was conventional failure. On the other hand, Novotna is a tennis player who was defeated because of chocking and yet she had a lot of experience.

The main idea for Gladwell to write this article was to differentiate between panicking and chocking. He has summed the differences between the two words using several ideas and scenarios. In panicking, the person usually lacks the knowledge or experience of performing the activity when he is under pressure. Gladwell has shown this by using the example where some people were going for a dividing test. They were expected to go deep into the water and use the extra oxygen to show how they would use it in an event to save somebody. These people did not have any experience. In the water, one of them breathed in water and as result, he panicked almost causing his friend to drown. This is because of lack of experiences and instincts. On the contrary, in chocking, people usually have the knowledge and experience about some thing but there is loss of instinct. Additionally, when people are choking they usually tend to think too much about the situation. For instance, Gladwell has used the example of the tennis player where, the player was try to think too much of what to do but his hands were not able to perform as he wanted. Therefore, Gladwell has used knowledge, experience and instinct to show the differences of panicking and chocking.

In the panicking, the degree in which people have experience in the performance of the different duties matters a lot. However, in chocking experiences does not matter a lot. In accordance to Gladwell, he states that chocking does not matter whether a person has experiences or not. On the other hand, experiences matters a lot when it comes to panicking. Gladwell states that experiences matters a lot in panicking because the more a person has a lot experience the higher the chances of survival. The vice versa of this statement is also true. According to Gladwell, when people are panicking they usually tend to forget everything about they know about the situation and the only thing that comes in their heads is what that can save them. In this case, when somebody has a lot of experience it means that he or she can perform the task even when he or she has closed his or her eyes due to the repetition of the same routine repeatedly. This also applies the same way when a person has panicked. This is because can loose his or her thinking but he or she cannot loose the experience he or she has.

Despite the different words that the author has used have very many differences; they still have some comparison in them. Gladwell has defined conventional failure and paradoxical failure. The two contain a similarity in them despite them having several differences. Both of them are sets of failures where they tend to define the course of an accident. This is according to Gladwell who states that when one is in a position which he or she is unable to explain and it results to failure ad yet he or she knows what ought to be done he or she is suffering from a failure. Either this failure can be conventional or paradoxical therefore the two have similarities in that they are failures. The other two words that Gladwell has been defining are chocking and panicking. Despite them containing numerous differences, they still have similarities. According to Gladwell, when it comes to those small situations they cannot be distinguished from one another. For instance, Gladwell has given an example which state, a basketball player might be making very many baskets when they are in training. During training, the player is not exposed to any pressure since they are only practicing. However, when they are playing against any team, especially when there are many fans of basketball watching, the basketball player might have a tendency of missing the baskets. In this situation, Gladwell has indicated that it might be very difficult to differentiate whether the player is panicking or chocking because at this situation they are the same.

In the article, Gladwell seems to care a lot about panicking and chocking. This is because not many people know what really happens when they are in such situations. For instance, when accidents happen especially those are not due to technical failure of the different machines people are left wondering what happened to the person who was operating it. Most of the time people usually think that the person panicked or chocked. Additionally, people take the two words to have the same meaning. It is because of this that Gladwell cares. To show why he cares he has gone ahead to explain the difference between the two words for the purposes of people top be able to understand what happened. In the chocking, Gladwell has used the example of the tennis player Novotna who choked while he was playing and yet he was leading the making him to fail. Very many people thought that he panicked no wonder he was defeated. According to Gladwell, the player choked. Chocking is when somebody has experience about what he or she is doing but he or she cannot be able to perform in accordance to what is expected of him. On the other hand, panicking occurs when one does not have experience about something. In such a situation, the player chocked rather panicking because he had experience in the field. In the other situation that Gladwell has used about J. F. Kennedy Junior, people thought the plane crush was due to bad weather or technical failure on the part of the harbor where there was electrical failure. This made it had for him to see anything thus causing the crush. According to Gladwell, what people did not know was that Kennedy was not experienced therefore; he panicked leading to the plain crush. It is because of this that Gladwell cares and wants to educate the people about such situations.

The reason as to why people need to understand these two words are very diverse according to Gladwell. One of the reasons is to educate the people who do not the difference the two words and the similarities. First, Gladwell has educate people how they will be able to know what happened incase such a situation was to occur. This is because they will look at the evidence available and in accordance with the different definitions; they will be able to know what has happened. The other reason as to why people need to know is for prevention purposes in the future. People need to know to how to prevent themselves in such situation if they were to occur. Gladwell has different situation so that he can be able to explain clearly to the people what has happened. Using this situation, people expected to learn what they will do incase they panicked or chocked to prevent the different failures.

Conclusion

            In the article, Gladwell has been able to explain the definition of the words chocking and panicking. In chocking, Gladwell has explained that people often tend to think a lot but they do not have control of their activities in the certain event. In panicking, Gladwell has said that people tend to forget everything and look for those avenues that can save them. Additionally, Gladwell has shown the different between the two words. For instance, in panicking experience matters a lot and the more a people are experienced the higher the chances of surviving the failure. On the other hand, in chocking experience does not matter. In addition, people tend to think more when they are chocking as compared to when they are panicking. However, the two have similarities but that can be explained in accordance to the different situations as stated by Gladwell. What people should think about is about the different situations they have had in life where they thought that they panicked and those they thought that they panicked. This is for the purposes of knowing what really happened.