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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

#171

Post by peteey »

BjoernKW wrote: post #89
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.

Hard work in itself isn't necessarily valuable. Smart work is. It's vital to learn early on that you have to put in the work if you want to achieve anything at all. Merely being gifted or naturally good at something certainly is not enough. However, I'd say it's just as important to understand the purpose behind any kind of work and to be able to question how things are usually done. Achieving the same or better resu…

I challenge the distinction between hard work and smart work. You cannot be smart without hard work. Amassing knowledge and mental ability requires years of effort and work. It is easier for gifted/clever people, but not inherent.

gifted =/= smart

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

#172

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

caser wrote: post #15

In many ways, this was my story growing up until I got really into soccer. I started playing late, but loved the game, so clawed my way up through practicing in much of my spare time, whether down by the field or in the street in front of my house. Soccer pre-season conditioning also was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done, and left me in the best shape of my life. This instilled the feedback loop of effort = re…

This worked for me; I was near the top of my class in a large urban high school, and breezed through academically (though we did have the benefit of cross-registering with the local university).

I became a long distance runner- cross country, track. This was immensely challenging, and our team was very diverse, ethnically and academically, giving an opportunity to break out of the "smart kid bubble" that a lot of "gifted" kids live in.

Then college and beer happened: I am no longer a long distance runner.

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

#173

Post by whamlastxmas »

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…

That employee clearly has issues unrelated to video games.

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

#175

Post by microtonal »

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.”

It does not necessarily have to do anything with laziness. The further you get the fiercer your competition. Most people around here were probably the best in elementary school and high school, perhaps even university. But if you go further up the intelligence or economic ladder, you will compare yourself to peers who are at the same step or next step. And the competition is much fiercer. You are 'competing' with people who are at least as intelligent or more intelligent. You are competing with people who have an even stronger work ethic. And then there is a certain factor of luck whether you'll be successful or not. I struggled with this for quite a while, because I always compared myself to (especially better) peers, and it makes you feel like a failure.

I have learned to accept more who and where I am and to enjoy it. Though it can still be hard at times (that's ego).

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

#176

Post by adamnemecek »

chrisweekly wrote: post #43
duxup wrote: post #18

The education system provides fairly clear and predictable paths to affirmation, success, and a sort of grade based people ranking system. Life outside that system often very much does not. Everyone has to come to terms with it at some point. I can understand how for someone who school makes a strong impression on them it can be a real struggle without what was such a clear and predictable system.

Agreed. Education has two complementary goals: 1. content curriculum (body of knowledge) 2. learning curriculum (how to learn) The latter is more subtle, and IMHO doesn't receive the attention it deserves.

School absolutely fails on the second one. You are forced to study on someone else's schedule which is terrible for learning.

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

#177

Post by commandlinefan »

bitexploder wrote: post #74

One of the worst things you can do, as a parent, is tell your kid they are smart. I have two kids and one of them is obviously “gifted”. The other is still pretty far ahead. Smart is a bad word in my house. Gifted is not something that is ever uttered. We (as parents) work very hard to instill a sense of hard work, effort, and purpose into our kids lives. They do BJJ, a martial art that is very hard, even if you are…

> One of the worst things you can do is tell your kid they are smart.

Well, don’t make them feel stupid, either - what I tell my son is that he’s smart, but I remind him that even if he’s smarter than 99% of all the people in the world, there are still 70 million people that are smarter than he is.

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

#178

Post by vagab0nd »

bitexploder wrote: post #74

One of the worst things you can do, as a parent, is tell your kid they are smart. I have two kids and one of them is obviously “gifted”. The other is still pretty far ahead. Smart is a bad word in my house. Gifted is not something that is ever uttered. We (as parents) work very hard to instill a sense of hard work, effort, and purpose into our kids lives. They do BJJ, a martial art that is very hard, even if you are…

Speaking from my own experience, I think it's very important to have a balanced view of the fact that you are smart. i.e. you shouldn't be ignorant of it.

If you "play" competitively in any of the fields, being ignorant of your own strength is a big disadvantage in my opinion.

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

#179

Post by humanrebar »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #118
amelius wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing, but why do you refer to your sibling as "they"?

My siblings gender is Female. Why does it matter? Did that change your perception of the story?

It doesn't matter, but the singular they confused me as well. It took me a second to realize 'they' is your sibling and not some other people entirely.

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

#180

Post by nihalot »

microtonal wrote: post #166
harimau777 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fin…

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. Can't you work remotely? There are a lot of smaller cities (at least in Europe) that have a great vibe, are welcoming to all kinds of people, and do not have extreme housing costs. I live in such a city, a large chunk of the population are students, so there is a vibrant so…

I'm working remotely but living like a nomad. A month at most in different villages across India. I now miss the city life, and am also considering moving to Europe, perhaps a small city in Germany. Can you share more about these smaller cities? What was your criteria for choosing the city you are in presently?
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