I’ve finally crossed into the light and got myself a Macbook 13″.  Yet I’m still compelled by the forces of darkness and will be for some time I think.   You see old habits die hard and while I know the Mac is great, the fact is it doesn’t help you make the adjustment to it’s way of doing things and some things I discover are definitely a step backwards.  For example, there are no plug-ins for the Mac on Skype and if you own a blackberry you won’t be happy with the Mac version of the blackberry desktop.

Hence the reason I am still pulled to the “dark” side.  Apple is truly compassionate however as there is no judgment about my continued dance with old habits, and in fact they actually make it really easy to cheat on the side with software like VMFusion which allows me to run my Mac like my old Windows machine.  So I can go back and forth between a Mac and a Windows environment by clicking an icon.   Funny enough Windows seems to run better on my new Mac than it did on my old PC.   How funny is that?

It’s really a tribute to Steve Jobs and his team that they have engendered such enthusiasm for their products.   Just the other day, as I was going through the airport security, one of the security persons came up to me to tell me that I could leave my Mac in it’s neoprene case to protect it.  She actually used the word “neoprene”.  She then beamed at me and said “Do you like it?  I just ordered one and I’m expecting it any day now.”  She couldn’t contain her excitement.

How amazing is that?  To create a product or service that excites people, and brings a smile to their face.  In a sea of similar products, the Mac stands out as a work of art and it’s not hard to see why people love them.  For one thing the Mac starts up ready to run in less than :30 whereas my desktop or laptop PC takes upwards of 5 mins and maybe longer.  There are many other great things about this product but I don’t intend to write a product review here.

The interesting observation for me is the exampe that the Mac is as a stand out or an “outlier” as Malcolm Gladwell calls those people who rise far above the average.  The Mac of course is not a person, but it represents what makes a person like Steve Jobs an outlier.  The passion, and underlying belief system that drives a person to consistently produce at the level of the ipod and the Mac is representative of what makes a person an outlier.

From my perspective, everyone is capable of of rising to such heights of performance and accomplishment yet it takes a passion of purpose, as well as a belief in self and what can be accomplished that must first be present, or if not present, then cultivated over time.   This is one aspect of living your life as a practice – a fundament.