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I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

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Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#151

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

turk73 wrote: post #62
augustl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately I spent a lot of that free time playing video games. It was fun but i could've achieved way more. I'm currently beta testing a new optimization - I'm only allowed to play WoW Classic after my todo-list is done. One if the items on the todo-list is "do something productive for 30 minutes" (and currently, there's no shortage of things to fill those 30 minutes with). Maybe I can use the extreme gravitati…

You should throw out all the games. I'm serious. I never really began to succeed until I stopped playing stupid games and became a man. Now I'm managing younger guys who can't put down the controller. Last fall I had to fire someone who was clearly staying up all night playing video games and was never prepared for work nor doing an adequate job at it. Sadly, his own sense of privilege prevented him from being able t…

If the purpose of life is to be as productive as possible, then throwing out video games (and any other form of entertainment) is obviously best. Most people will be more productive if they work more.

That being said, there are plenty of successful people who play video games. And there are plenty of addictions that are at least as time-consuming and no more productive (TV, alcohol, Hacker News). Everyone has to balance for themselves how much time they'll spend in unproductive pursuits.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#152

Post by rnernento »

A lot of really smart people see the traps associated with "success" at high levels. Even if you're good at everything it's still a significant effort to rise to the top in most fields.

Also, to put all this in context I would say that humanity overall is failing pretty hard right now. We're basically destroying the planet and treating the vast majority of the global population like shit. "Success" is relative...

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#153

Post by brm »

S_A_P wrote: post #17

One of the first articles I remember reading on HN was back in 2009. The gist of the article was that you shouldn’t praise your kids for being smart, praise them when they work hard. Rewarding hard work will better serve them in the long run since being smart will plateau at some point. I have a 9 and 11 year old and I still bristle a little bit when my mom says y’all are so smart.

That’s also how you’d raise a plough horse.

The toughest thing in life for a smart person to figure out is often what’s worth working hard at and what they truly want.

It seems as rare to find a person who has gone through the steps to decide if they truly want and value the outcome they’re working towards as it is to find a smart person who doesn’t apply themselves fully when they’re actually interested in, value, and want to accomplish or do something.

Intelligence is a blunt instrument and should be taught to be used with the same consideration and care as you would any other potentially dangerous tool or device.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#154

Post by waterhouse »

amykhar wrote: post #103
S_A_P wrote: post #17

One of the first articles I remember reading on HN was back in 2009. The gist of the article was that you shouldn’t praise your kids for being smart, praise them when they work hard. Rewarding hard work will better serve them in the long run since being smart will plateau at some point. I have a 9 and 11 year old and I still bristle a little bit when my mom says y’all are so smart.

On the flip side, you have to challenge them and give them the opportunity to work hard. I think schools get lazy with gifted kids. Gifted kids deserve to be challenged and put to the limits of their abilities the same as non-gifted children, but schools just don't do that. Tracking children by ability in the US has been labeled elitist. Funding often isn't there for enrichment programs. Parents are expected to provi…

I'm just going to keep posting this when the subject comes up...

"A 20-year longitudinal study has traced the academic, social, and emotional development of 60 young Australians with IQs of 160 and above. Significant differences have been noted in the young people’s educational status and direction, life satisfaction, social relationships, and self-esteem as a function of the degree of academic acceleration their schools permitted them in childhood and adolescence. The considerable majority of young people who have been radically accelerated, or who accelerated by 2 years, report high degrees of life satisfaction, have taken research degrees at leading universities, have professional careers, and report facilitative social and love relationships. Young people of equal abilities who accelerated by only 1 year or who have not been permitted acceleration have tended to enter less academically rigorous college courses, report lower levels of life satisfaction, and in many cases, experience significant difficulties with socialization. Several did not graduate from college or high school."

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#155

Post by harimau777 »

jshaqaw wrote: post #36

Part of the issue here is defining what it means to “achieve”. I was a gifted child and graduated at the top of my fancy Ivy League university. Did I go on to conquer the world? No. And many days I stress and feel bad about that. But that’s mostly when I allow myself to judge myself by the external validation system of society. Society values a big bank account or fancy awards which is fine. A happy life spent with f…

Personally, my goals are to have an interesting job (i.e. using a modern tech stack), have the resources to pursue my hobbies, and have the autonomy to be eccentric if I want to.

However, meeting those goals require a lot of money. This is especially the case since interesting tech jobs, access to niche resources, and tolerance of alternative lifestyles are all associated with living in a large city.

Therefore, I find myself in a situation where making a lot of money isn't my goal, but I feel that I have to do it if I want to achieve my goals.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#156

Post by redsparrow »

petercooper wrote: post #7

One trick is to find two things you are reasonably gifted at and you're more likely to be remarkable if you work in the area where those two things meet. For example, if you're an 80th %ile programmer and 80th %ile automotive mechanic, there is surely a niche that connects the two where you would perhaps be 95 %ile merely by how unusual it is to being good at both things.

This echos some career advice from Dilbert creator Scott Adams. "Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things." He also goes on to say that "at least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal." The idea being that this should make it easier to leverage your other skill(s) in a work environment.

https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/car...

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#157

Post by sabas123 »

yomly wrote: post #20

People blossom at different stages of their lives - sometimes it's physical/technical, other times it's emotional, but in any case sometimes these advantages/head starts end up evening out after the first 30 years for people. To tell some anecdotes of people living at the pinnacle of piano: There is a pianist called Aimi Kobayashi who was a real piano prodigy - she was performing big concertos by the age of 9. Here i…

Another good example of this would be the starcraft player Jaedong, he failed the tournement that you needed to win your proffesional licence 9 times, had absolutely terrible records in training (winning 1 out 20/30 vs teammates) to becoming one of the most legendary players through pure perseverance

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#158

Post by dm3 »

cheez wrote: post #110
foobarian wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another similar story here. Got all the way to end of post-doc until I realized I was doing it all for external reasons (immigrant from culture that pushes academics very hard). I definitely won't be pushing my kid the same way. Sometimes I wonder if it is possible to swing the pendulum too much the other way? But I hope to strike a happy medium.

Yes it is possible to push it too far the other way. The immigrant culture that pushes academics very hard simply needs to be amended to add on the part of life that is fun. I pushed my kids hard, encouraged them to have fun and enjoy life, and now they do that on their own. They make their own goals, set out plans to achieve them, getting parental help along the way, but also encouraged them to have fun. For example…

Do you mind giving an example or two of how you push or pushed your kids in a positive way?

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#159

Post by mcguire »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #51
S_A_P wrote: post #17

One of the first articles I remember reading on HN was back in 2009. The gist of the article was that you shouldn’t praise your kids for being smart, praise them when they work hard. Rewarding hard work will better serve them in the long run since being smart will plateau at some point. I have a 9 and 11 year old and I still bristle a little bit when my mom says y’all are so smart.

It's what Pratchett said: “If you trust in yourself... and believe in your dreams... and follow your star... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

On the other hand, those who work hard and aren't lazy aren't having any fun either.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#160

Post by mojomark »

lorepieri wrote: post #93
jshaqaw wrote: post #36

Part of the issue here is defining what it means to “achieve”. I was a gifted child and graduated at the top of my fancy Ivy League university. Did I go on to conquer the world? No. And many days I stress and feel bad about that. But that’s mostly when I allow myself to judge myself by the external validation system of society. Society values a big bank account or fancy awards which is fine. A happy life spent with f…

Well said. Some people talk about enlightenment. To me, that is nothing else than fully realising that what really matters has actually been at our reach all the time. It's just that it is so difficult to filter out the external pressure to "achieve more".

It may sound ridiculous (you're going to laugh), but when I find myself stressing over superficial things, it helps me to think of the song "The Grand Illusion" by Styx. To me, no words better sum up the odd complexity that has emerged from humanity. It's my mantra. My wife's mantra is equally ridiculous and true: "it just doesn't matter" from Bill Murray's monologue in Meatballs. Maybe one of these mantras will help you.

I have to also note that in my ~20yrs of corporate experience, the kinder you are, in concert with being as blunt and truthful as possible, the more people will trust and value your input.

I think these traits emerge if you repeat mantra's like the ones above to yourself multiple times a day - when skimming through your emails in the morning (I often just delete or archive all but 1 or 2), when in a meeting that's going in circles or getting heated (I often just smile and leave), when you're running late for work, when you're worried about taking time off, when your air conditioner brakes or you get into a minor fender bender, or $200K of you're employee owned shares are suddenly nullified. It's all a grand illusion, and it just doesn't matter.

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