331–340 of 424 posts
Which is really the main point. Ones circumstances aside, I strongly believe you can achieve what you set your mind to. I've been able to achieve everything I've truly wanted to achieve in my life so far.
I suspect the author of the article wanted to be a mother, married and to work with children. It looks like she achieved these things.
Please take some personal responsibility for your own actions (or inactions in this case).
Frankly anyone who has had a decent education (even if they were not "gifted") has potential to waste; its not unique to "gifted" people to throw that away.
Truth is, even if you are pretty smart for an ape, your 80-90 years in this planet doesn't really matter. All there is to achieve is getting your life figured out. Which is no simple problem. Knowing what you actually want and need is very difficult already and that's only half the battle.
This story reminds me somewhat of the Billy Beane story from Moneyball. Billy never really experienced failure until he was drafted. All the way through high school, he was a "can't miss" prospect. A 5-tool player. The best athlete on either team, etc. And that went to his head. He wasn't able to deal with failure at all (and this is well chronicled in the book), which ultimately led to his downfall as a player.
It is the key to understand a mind of a wunderkind, I believe (at least in my own case it was so). It is the reason why parents should not praise their child on being smart. When you are praised on being smart at a child age, when your self-concept is being formed, then "to be smart" becomes a part of self-concept. To be not smart means to fail yourself. The worst part of it: it is a very short-sighted concept, it means that to fit into my self-concept I need not to really be smart, but to look smart.
It is like a mask I need to wear. The mask of a smart man. With a hidden fear of being not as smart as it looks from outside. Sometimes with a panic attacks when mask slips for a second (not the real panic attacks, but pretty close to it).
I remember that being at school I was reluctant to ask my father to help me with math homework. He could explain anything, but I never managed to understand his explanations, he was a terrible teacher. I knew that I couldn't understand him and I knew that he would ask "are you understand now" and I knew that I would be afraid to disappoint my father by my stupidity by admitting that I had understood nothing from his explanations. So I did math homework by myself, even if I struggled to understand how to do it. Even when my mother suggested me to ask my father about it.
That situation was projected to a future. It was hard to overcome fear of asking other (and to inform them that I'm "stupid"), it was hard (it is hard) to work hard when I'm suspecting that I'll fail with that. Even if I'm a little bit unsure about my coming success it would be hard.
I used to think that I just couldn't work hard, but then I realized, that I can work hard, just up to a point when I start to doubt my success.
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…
I’m so glad I had parents who encouraged in me what you are encouraging in your children. I was accepted to a very prestigious university, and as my friends, their parents, and other adults (including some family) found out, there was mostly encouragement to just go there. The attitude was, “why wouldn’t I want to go there? Just think of the opportunity!” They we’re shocked I was thinking of attending a state school…
They called me gifted as a kid. Tested at a genius level IQ (not that it matters). I barely passed high school. I started my first company while in it. I dropped out of my engineering programming. I was teaching other students about computers and was running a business on the side. I am not someone who follows the rules well. My sibling is the polar opposite, they have three Ivy League degrees. They were top 3% of th…
Sorry but I strongly disagree with this advice.
Being able to do what you love for work is a huge luxury that most people can not afford. It's much easier to learn to be content or happy with something that makes money than to make money off your interest.
Just look at the number of starving artists/actors/musicians on why following your passion doesn't really work for most people. The reality is that being able to get paid for something isn't up to you but society.
It isn't even necessarily dictated by how good you are at something. There are many examples of great composers who ended up dying in poverty but whose works of genius survive and are heard to this day.
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…
"I think I am smart." That's really cute! I mean, it's pretty much impossible to hide smartness. If you are smart, you will know. I am not attractive, but I also heard that if you are very attractive, it's pretty much impossible not to realize that.
The point is not to hide smartness, the point is not to allow your child to came to an idea that to fail to be smart means that parents would be disappointed and would love him less.
If you praise your child on being smart, that he/she will come to such a stupid idea. It doesn't mean they would be able to express this idea in words, it means that their mind would operate in such a way, that presumes that the idea is true.
Do you know how people feel when they fail to be "a good boy/girl"? To be good in a sense you had internalized before you turned 10. A person could feel the same if to be good means to be smart for him/her.
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…
I've played games back in the day with at least one person who has become a billionaire in software.
Everyone is different, your way is not the only way.
Now if you're addicted and don't see yourself moving forward, then sure, adjust it. But you should do that if you're addicted to anything.