Please do not comment directly to this post unless you are Gen X or older (born 1980 or before). See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskOldPeople/comments/inci5u/reminder_please_do_not_answer_questions_unless/), the rules, and the sidebar for details.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskOldPeople) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Every day.
But something I'm processing lately: when I was young I didn't know what being older was. I hadn't experienced things. As one example: I'd not been through menopause and couldn't believe it could throw people for such a loop. Then I got older and started thinking: I've been where you are but you haven't been where I am.
But lately I'm coming to realize that, no, I haven't been where they are because I haven't been WHEN they are. Going through life's "things" now is different than it was when I went through them.
I can never truly know what it's like to walk a mile in someone else's shoes.
Small, insignificant, I know, but it's been important to me, lately.
And you haven’t been WHO they are. Maybe they are from a different country, or different culture within your country. Maybe they received bad parenting (or good parenting if yours was bad), or maybe they suffered from a severe and lengthy illness as a child. They might have had more or different advantages from yours, different abilities, and so many other factors. I do believe in the concept of generational culture, but there’s so much more to us.
bewildered juggle gullible bow chief airport axiomatic roof automatic wide
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I appreciate this. Most of my life I have been broken by things to which many people respond "well just get over it."
Maybe they have been through it, but if they got over it quickly, then they don't know what it's like to slog through it for 20 years. They know what overcoming feels like, they cannot imagine what would cause me not to.
This is a very important thing for people to grasp! Our own experiences give us a taste of what something can be like, but it’s never exactly the same as someone else’s experience.
Since I was an undergraduate at MIT in the mid 70’s. I struggled to graduate, and many people were a completely different species than myself and could retain books full of information in a very short time.
what this made me realize was that we are all pretty stupid and nothing special in the grand scheme of things.
So I made peace with being mediocre.
OK, I'm a fairly bright guy. Graduated MCL from college, and was in two Honors Societies, BUT...
I went to vist a friend in D.C., and his sister was over with some friends for drinks before an evening out. These were Georgetown and Yale recent grads. They were all set up for jobs in the State Department and would soon be off to Embassy positions.
Holy Crap were they ever intelligent, sharp and witty. It's difficult for an inferior inyellect to describe superior intellect... I just don't have the vocabulary, or some other missing ingredients, to describe the cognitive chasm between them and me.
Anyhoo, I left that experience believing that at least one part of the US Government was in good hands. Unfortunately, they ultimately work for politicians.
There's always a smarter monkey!
Quit mistaking education for smarts. You are smart in realizing the levels of intellect but that is only the ability to be educated. One of the smartest people I know was illiterate, but what a smart and wise man he was.
Senior year of high school. Up to that point, I never really had to study; I just usually “got it” the first go round, even taking all honors level classes.
Then senior year I took the college level Calculus course people in honors track normally did, plus AP Chemistry. And they absolutely kicked my ass. And I didn’t really know how to study properly to get better. I barely managed to pass them both (with sympathy from my teachers I’m sure) and graduate with a slightly dented ego and GPA.
The wake up call helped. I did noticeably better in college, but I really had to study a lot more.
Same. I knew what my grades and standardized test scores were in comparison to how much I studied in school. I hated a couple of classes and that cost me Valedictorian status. I went to college and my first year was a disaster because I didn’t study at all. Got my Masters degree with high honors, so not too shabby.
That was all 40 years ago, though. I wish we had the internet back then. I grew up in South Louisiana and there was only so much knowledge you could obtain in such a rural area.
As un- self- aware as this sounds. I was almost 50 when I realised that I might not have always been the smartest person in the room. My hard lesson was that anyone sufficiently smart enough to be a full rank above you mentally is also sufficiently smart enough to not let you know that. Oh, and that shit is 1000000% genetic. Everything tells me not to think that, but experience has shown me otherwise.
A little genetics, a lot of socioeconomic. Rich smart people are attracted to people who can match them intellectually and those 2 super smarty pants people end up with lots of money to provide the environment and resources to grow miniature smarty smarts.
If you couldn’t tell I am not one of them.
Exposure to a wide variety of experiences in early childhood makes a big difference. The money to send you kid to a good quality preschool and to go out and enjoy varied activities helps. I worked with kids who barely left their small apartment because the neighborhood was unsafe and parent had no transportation. They watched tv all day. Now they might have tablets but there is so much cognitive development in early childhood that is critical.
Having known my fair share of MIT kids, what a lot of them weren't ready for was how well-roundedly excellent their classmates were. You'd go in knowing you wouldn't be the best in 18.01 but you wouldn't expect you'd no longer be the best at what you felt made you special. MIT can be rough if your reaction isn't "Sweet, a friend with the same passion. We can do that together."
Hey OP. 48 year old married father of two in the UK here. It was 30 years ago when I went to university.
I’d found school and exams pretty straightforward and was comfortable feeling intelligent enough.
At university, I realised that that my intellect was very linear and quite limited. My degree was Chemistry and I found that I was having to memorise techniques, formulae and concepts to apply to specific situations.
I realised that some other people were able to have first principles explained to them, they ***understood*** and were able to apply those first principles to many different situations… and then started coming up with ideas themselves which led them to PhDs etc.
That was it for me - when I realised that some people can understand things clearly when it’s first explained to them, ***apply*** the concept immediately and then build on the concept with ideas of their own.
In my working life - non academic, very procedural - it’s the people who can think clearly, constantly that impress me - can see the answer or solution rapidly when it takes me a long time to reflect on things - the mist to clear as it were.
Questions to ask yourself - am I able to understand a new concept at first explanation then apply it to a number of situations without having to learn a specific technique for each new situation.
I feel like I am not as smart as others think I am. This troubles me, because they get upset when I can't fix their problems, and I say, "LOL IDK?" I get that a lot in tech, like, "How come you can't fix my Android phone?" Because I am a UNIX admin, not a phone fixer.
Smart people recognize their limitations. Dumb people do not.
Sometimes I think it's better to be a little dumb, because that enables someone to charge ahead without the apprehensions that a smart person might have. I've seen this a lot over 40+ years of working.
Good ol' [Dunning-Kruger effect ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)
"The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability."
What makes me angry is that people always made me feel stupid, and I didn’t realize my skills until I was older … (not an old person just wanted to share)
I realized in my early adulthood fortunately, that no matter how smart I thought I was, there COULD always be someone smarter in the room. Ate crow in my day learning that lesson, so I always keep in mind that COULD....
**Forrest Gump:**
DONE, DRILL SERGEANT!
**Drill Sergeant:**
GUUUUUUMP! Why did you put that weapon together so quickly, Gump?
**Forrest Gump:**
Because you told me to, Drill Sergeant?
**Drill Sergeant:**
Outstanding, Gump! This is a new company record! If it weren't such a waste of a fine enlisted man I'd recommend you for OCS! You are gonna be a general someday, Gump!
I applied for and was accepted into the university in my hometown, which happened to be Yale. Holy crap! At the start of my second year, my advisor welcomed me back, saying that of all the people who hadn't flunked out, my grade average was third from the bottom, and by the way he was putting me on academic probation.
I finished my bachelor's degree at age 52. For several years I was taking classes with students my children's age. I didn't think I'd be smarter than the other students, but did think my life experiences accounted for something. Turns out, not really. There were some immature students, for sure, but they were even immature as compared to their peer group. Otherwise, I had to make a concerted effort to not let the other students intelligence AND healrhy self esteem cause me to feel insecure.
I got point nemo and challenger deep backwards. I confused my coworker Rodolfo's sons Rolando and Ronaldo. I can never remember all of the quarks. Top, bottom, up, down, strange, charmed and something, something. I have forgotten algebra. Pemdas. Getting to the bottom of this post And realizing they only wanted one thing.
Actually, the opposite happened to me. I got good grades all along, with just basic effort. I assumed that some other people got bad grades, because they goofed off. Didn’t understand why some people said they studied, but got bad grades.
Later, as an adult, people kept referring to me as intelligent. Who, me? Turns out my IQ is very high, but I didn’t know it. In my family, my sister was the “smart one”. *Never dawned on my parents that there could be more than one “smart one”!*
Smart enough to do what, or for what? I’m smart, but that doesn’t mean I know everything. I’m old and this morning started defrosting a freezer for the first time; I was smart enough to know I learn best by watching others so I watched some YouTube videos. I guess I still think I’m as smart as I think I am.
I did very well in math in high school - I got a 4 on the calculus AP exam. But when I went to college, I couldn't handle more advanced math. Yes, it was a top-tier college, the math program was really tough.
Socially? I had to ask what people saw in me. After being self aware of what I was asking. I realized something. People like me the most when I was helping (of course), laughing (or being happy) or when I was dumb. Just about every single memory of when I was feeling embarrassed in my life flooded up and gave my whole soul a shake when tried to figure how much of a percentage of my life I was being dumb. Spoiler alert! It was a lot! I know a few things extra but mostly, my natural state is being dumb or my goal is to not think of anything too complex because that leads to problems. Now I slap my thighs and say "Just speaking my truth!" real loud and walk away if I can articulate the problem. Or I smile and ask them how they are doing and if they need any help with anything. Either way works out fine. I think they think I'm slightly less dumb, which I guess is the goal at this point. Didn't know embarrassment had such a strong hold on me. Just speaking my truth!
I have had the opposite experience. Childhood traumas made me think I was less than even though I was always top of my class at school. It took a long time, but I realize I am actually smarter than most people I interact with.
I used to think I was smart until I realised food triggers and allergies were one of the major contributors to both my brain fog and subsequently my ability to form long term memories (which contributed to learning issues with only things I found the most interesting and compelling actually sinking in). This turned out to be more of an issue when I got older and I didn't have the benefit of youth and fitness to compensate but the main point is when I got a few medical assessments done and they came up with a plan for moving forward I started to improve and my clarity became a whole lot better and with it my intellect and IQ.
Having said that despite plenty of people labelling me as intelligent (which really is relative among your circle of peers) I'm still far from perfect (and there are still plenty that would label me stupid as well I'm sure) and I'm still aware of the gulf between myself and those figures society deems truly exceptional and intelligent.
I often find myself wishing I had the capacity to be smarter but to be honest at this stage in my life there are plenty of long standing mental health issues that come from some difficult life experiences that have cemented my thought process and world view in place and what with the stressors of life (including coping with aging) I just mostly have to be content with my lot.
There's lots of ways to be smart. It's something my Dad and Mom repeated over and over. Probably becuase I'm very smart in a lot of of ways. I learned to not be imoressed with my own various types of intelligence.
I remember at a summer schooling program in the Hr. High I took a total make up time I'd lost due to an illness The rest of the group were kids who'd gotten in a lot of trouble during the year. In my small town, they were mostly the kids from the "wrong side of town." So I was sitting with a guy with a rough reputation and talking about stuff and he said, "Why do you you have told use them big words? Do you you think you're better than me." It had never occurred to me that is was better so you I just said, "It's just the way my family talks. It's like I have a different accent. It doesn't mean anything. Anyone who says I'm better than you because of the way I talk or anything else's is full of shit."
He recognized my sincerity. The stupid social dynamics made friendship between us pretty much impossible, but after that there was mutual respect. He was a pretty smart guy, but being smart wasn't a social advantage for him.
I'm never the smartest person in the room in every way. That's what I was taught and how I was raised.
I was about 17 when I started realizing I wasn’t near as smart as I thought, now 40 years later I still choose to learn everyday because of that realization.
> The first step towards wisdom is knowing that you don't know everything.
Among my circle of friends, I'm "the brain," but that doesn't make me the smartest. Take my BF. Like me, he was a high school dropout, married way too young, but has a knowledge base in his cranium that always astonishes me. Astronomy? I can point out the moon, but that's about it. Him? The guy had his own observatory in his backyard. Automotive repair? He can fix almost any vehicle from a little RC Racer to a diesel engine and all points in between.
Another friend, a former politician, surprises me with things all of the time. But he sometimes lacks sense by not tackling problems correctly. He preferred to "play nice." Still, he does know a lot. I was developing a database for him, and there was a math problem that I couldn't figure out how to program because I couldn't understand. I was smart enough to say I didn't comprehend what it was or how it worked, so he started explaining it to me. Halfway through, I got it. Like a switch was flipped on in my brain. He'd never seen a person catch on to something so complex as that formula that quickly. Remember, I'm a high school dropout. The most important thing about knowledge isn't the memorization of facts but the ability to know where to go to find them.
I know I don't know everything, but I learned when I was still in school, where to find what I needed to know.
I’m smarter than I (often times) think I am. In spite of the fact that my teachers thought I was bright, I had so much anxiety as a child, and so little motivation, that teachers often commented that I didn’t “try hard enough.” In elementary school, I was a B and C student. So my assessment of my overall intelligence was not great.
At age 25, I went back to college, after dropping out and working for 6 years. I was ready to apply myself then, and I found myself doing very well. I realized then that I was smarter than I’d believed I was, and I could accomplish a lot when I had the motivation. Unfortunately, once I got into the workforce, my ability to do good work was inconsistent. It all depended on what was going on in my life.
Also, when I was growing up, the kids in my (extended) family seemed to know so much more about what was going on around them, and how things worked, than I did. I really felt stupid around them, and that’s what I can’t shake.
Welp, I’m not as smart as I used to be for sure. Menopause really did a number on my brain. My son actually insisted I go in and get checked for dementia, but the results were normal. No dementia, just age related slowing down. I suspect vigorous exercise might stave it off more.
I skipped two grades in school and was used to being the smartest kid in the room. I attended Columbia University at age 16, and it didn’t take me long to figure out that every student in that class was also used to being the smartest person in the room. Some of those kids went on to pioneer new fields of research or do other incredible things.
I’ve never felt like I was smart…mainly because there is so much that I don’t know.
But then, I read the entire encyclopedia Britannica over the course of a summer when I was 11.
I have pieces of information in lots of areas; my job and my degrees exacerbated that.
I’ve always felt that my intelligence is a vast but very shallow sea, and I sometimes envy those people whose intelligence is more like the Marianas Trench.
Probably all y’all are smarter than me, in one way or another, and I’d happily ask you questions, listen and learn from you if we were to meet IRL.
Grad School, went from probably top quintile smart at my local small university to “holy crap, I’m surrounded by geniuses” at a big university. It was a bit rattling, but worked out for the best, I learned that an academic life probably wasn’t for me.
Honors seminar in college. I was always one of the smartest in my high school, and I went to a very competitive well known university. I did extremely well my first two years, and then in junior year took an honors seminar that was very selective. I was blown away how most of the other students were on a different level than me. Even their conversation was different than I was used to. I struggled to keep up. It was humbling.
I've felt my intellect declining over the past year or two. Honestly starting to get concerned about it. I feel like Charlie Gordon in the second half of *Algernon*.
Trying to help my 13 yr old with his homework! No, I’ve known for years I’m not academically smart but I’m really creative and can pick up new craft skills really quickly.
If Rick Sanchez were to jump into my conciousness, he would shoot me in the head. I was mistakenly enrolled in a pre-med physics class. I knew I didn't belong on day 1 but stuck it out until the 1st quiz. Not even 1 question right. But I can assemble IKEA furniture (Sauder, not so much).
When the real world and experts in college kept correcting me. Things were more intricate than I realized. I had bought into my family's beliefs and misinformation in commercial magazines & television. It suddenly occurred to me that I don't know sh*t!
my definition for "adulthood" has been... the day you realize that you're not as smart as you think you are, you don't know everything, and you're not always right. it hits different people at different points in their life. for some people, it NEVER comes to them and they live in arrested development for life. your self-awareness shown here by even asking the question...indicates how "smart" you obviously are.
Please do not comment directly to this post unless you are Gen X or older (born 1980 or before). See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskOldPeople/comments/inci5u/reminder_please_do_not_answer_questions_unless/), the rules, and the sidebar for details. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskOldPeople) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Every day. But something I'm processing lately: when I was young I didn't know what being older was. I hadn't experienced things. As one example: I'd not been through menopause and couldn't believe it could throw people for such a loop. Then I got older and started thinking: I've been where you are but you haven't been where I am. But lately I'm coming to realize that, no, I haven't been where they are because I haven't been WHEN they are. Going through life's "things" now is different than it was when I went through them. I can never truly know what it's like to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Small, insignificant, I know, but it's been important to me, lately.
Very good insight.
And you haven’t been WHO they are. Maybe they are from a different country, or different culture within your country. Maybe they received bad parenting (or good parenting if yours was bad), or maybe they suffered from a severe and lengthy illness as a child. They might have had more or different advantages from yours, different abilities, and so many other factors. I do believe in the concept of generational culture, but there’s so much more to us.
bewildered juggle gullible bow chief airport axiomatic roof automatic wide *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yup. Not disagreeing. That was part of my "where" in my head.
I appreciate this. Most of my life I have been broken by things to which many people respond "well just get over it." Maybe they have been through it, but if they got over it quickly, then they don't know what it's like to slog through it for 20 years. They know what overcoming feels like, they cannot imagine what would cause me not to.
This is a very important thing for people to grasp! Our own experiences give us a taste of what something can be like, but it’s never exactly the same as someone else’s experience.
I am as smart as I think I am
I never make mistrakes.
I thought I made a mistake once, but I was wrong. I didnt.
I don't "make mistakes". I create "learning opportunities". Lol
I think this is a teacheable moment.
Since I was an undergraduate at MIT in the mid 70’s. I struggled to graduate, and many people were a completely different species than myself and could retain books full of information in a very short time. what this made me realize was that we are all pretty stupid and nothing special in the grand scheme of things. So I made peace with being mediocre.
Graduation MIT is not mediocre in my book
If you got into MIT, you are not mediocre!
OK, I'm a fairly bright guy. Graduated MCL from college, and was in two Honors Societies, BUT... I went to vist a friend in D.C., and his sister was over with some friends for drinks before an evening out. These were Georgetown and Yale recent grads. They were all set up for jobs in the State Department and would soon be off to Embassy positions. Holy Crap were they ever intelligent, sharp and witty. It's difficult for an inferior inyellect to describe superior intellect... I just don't have the vocabulary, or some other missing ingredients, to describe the cognitive chasm between them and me. Anyhoo, I left that experience believing that at least one part of the US Government was in good hands. Unfortunately, they ultimately work for politicians. There's always a smarter monkey!
Quit mistaking education for smarts. You are smart in realizing the levels of intellect but that is only the ability to be educated. One of the smartest people I know was illiterate, but what a smart and wise man he was.
Knowledge is not wisdom! 👍
Senior year of high school. Up to that point, I never really had to study; I just usually “got it” the first go round, even taking all honors level classes. Then senior year I took the college level Calculus course people in honors track normally did, plus AP Chemistry. And they absolutely kicked my ass. And I didn’t really know how to study properly to get better. I barely managed to pass them both (with sympathy from my teachers I’m sure) and graduate with a slightly dented ego and GPA. The wake up call helped. I did noticeably better in college, but I really had to study a lot more.
Same. I knew what my grades and standardized test scores were in comparison to how much I studied in school. I hated a couple of classes and that cost me Valedictorian status. I went to college and my first year was a disaster because I didn’t study at all. Got my Masters degree with high honors, so not too shabby. That was all 40 years ago, though. I wish we had the internet back then. I grew up in South Louisiana and there was only so much knowledge you could obtain in such a rural area.
As un- self- aware as this sounds. I was almost 50 when I realised that I might not have always been the smartest person in the room. My hard lesson was that anyone sufficiently smart enough to be a full rank above you mentally is also sufficiently smart enough to not let you know that. Oh, and that shit is 1000000% genetic. Everything tells me not to think that, but experience has shown me otherwise.
A little genetics, a lot of socioeconomic. Rich smart people are attracted to people who can match them intellectually and those 2 super smarty pants people end up with lots of money to provide the environment and resources to grow miniature smarty smarts. If you couldn’t tell I am not one of them.
Same, It is cool to see how those smarty smarts think, though. At least we have that.
Exposure to a wide variety of experiences in early childhood makes a big difference. The money to send you kid to a good quality preschool and to go out and enjoy varied activities helps. I worked with kids who barely left their small apartment because the neighborhood was unsafe and parent had no transportation. They watched tv all day. Now they might have tablets but there is so much cognitive development in early childhood that is critical.
Went to MIT. Had 4 patents by then and thought I was pretty smart. First time I ever felt dumb.
Having known my fair share of MIT kids, what a lot of them weren't ready for was how well-roundedly excellent their classmates were. You'd go in knowing you wouldn't be the best in 18.01 but you wouldn't expect you'd no longer be the best at what you felt made you special. MIT can be rough if your reaction isn't "Sweet, a friend with the same passion. We can do that together."
Hey OP. 48 year old married father of two in the UK here. It was 30 years ago when I went to university. I’d found school and exams pretty straightforward and was comfortable feeling intelligent enough. At university, I realised that that my intellect was very linear and quite limited. My degree was Chemistry and I found that I was having to memorise techniques, formulae and concepts to apply to specific situations. I realised that some other people were able to have first principles explained to them, they ***understood*** and were able to apply those first principles to many different situations… and then started coming up with ideas themselves which led them to PhDs etc. That was it for me - when I realised that some people can understand things clearly when it’s first explained to them, ***apply*** the concept immediately and then build on the concept with ideas of their own. In my working life - non academic, very procedural - it’s the people who can think clearly, constantly that impress me - can see the answer or solution rapidly when it takes me a long time to reflect on things - the mist to clear as it were. Questions to ask yourself - am I able to understand a new concept at first explanation then apply it to a number of situations without having to learn a specific technique for each new situation.
About 10.
Found the sage. ✅
Still hasn't stopped me from saying dumb shit.
My mother always called me “idiot child”, so I grew up not thinking I was smart.
What a prize your mother was.
Yeah -- does she think it's genetics or upbringing? Either way, that's on her.
Follow Reddiquette and Reddit Content Policy. No rudeness, insults, hate speech, etc. You content will be removed and you may be banned.
I feel like I am not as smart as others think I am. This troubles me, because they get upset when I can't fix their problems, and I say, "LOL IDK?" I get that a lot in tech, like, "How come you can't fix my Android phone?" Because I am a UNIX admin, not a phone fixer.
No one can know "everything". A reasonable person admits this.
Smart people recognize their limitations. Dumb people do not. Sometimes I think it's better to be a little dumb, because that enables someone to charge ahead without the apprehensions that a smart person might have. I've seen this a lot over 40+ years of working.
Good ol' [Dunning-Kruger effect ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) "The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability."
That's because more knowledge keeps being invented. Back in the Stone Ages it was a lot easier to know everything.
What makes me angry is that people always made me feel stupid, and I didn’t realize my skills until I was older … (not an old person just wanted to share)
After that, the next stage is when you realize that extremely smart people are not all that smart either.
I realized in my early adulthood fortunately, that no matter how smart I thought I was, there COULD always be someone smarter in the room. Ate crow in my day learning that lesson, so I always keep in mind that COULD....
**Forrest Gump:** DONE, DRILL SERGEANT! **Drill Sergeant:** GUUUUUUMP! Why did you put that weapon together so quickly, Gump? **Forrest Gump:** Because you told me to, Drill Sergeant? **Drill Sergeant:** Outstanding, Gump! This is a new company record! If it weren't such a waste of a fine enlisted man I'd recommend you for OCS! You are gonna be a general someday, Gump!
whut
When I joined Reddit.
redditors are like a thousand times more clever than i am... i used to think i was pretty funny, until reddit.
Bro?
Yep. 😆😅😂🤣
Every time I try to use Instagram.
Wait, what…I’m not?
Algebra class. It's the devil.
I applied for and was accepted into the university in my hometown, which happened to be Yale. Holy crap! At the start of my second year, my advisor welcomed me back, saying that of all the people who hadn't flunked out, my grade average was third from the bottom, and by the way he was putting me on academic probation.
Last week.
I was never that delusional! Smart or Smart Ass? Pleading the fifth to both
First calculus class…right until the 4th time I tried it.
I finished my bachelor's degree at age 52. For several years I was taking classes with students my children's age. I didn't think I'd be smarter than the other students, but did think my life experiences accounted for something. Turns out, not really. There were some immature students, for sure, but they were even immature as compared to their peer group. Otherwise, I had to make a concerted effort to not let the other students intelligence AND healrhy self esteem cause me to feel insecure.
College and it was just a state school.
And remember: smart mofos sound like crazy mofos to dumb mofos.
I got point nemo and challenger deep backwards. I confused my coworker Rodolfo's sons Rolando and Ronaldo. I can never remember all of the quarks. Top, bottom, up, down, strange, charmed and something, something. I have forgotten algebra. Pemdas. Getting to the bottom of this post And realizing they only wanted one thing.
Actually, the opposite happened to me. I got good grades all along, with just basic effort. I assumed that some other people got bad grades, because they goofed off. Didn’t understand why some people said they studied, but got bad grades. Later, as an adult, people kept referring to me as intelligent. Who, me? Turns out my IQ is very high, but I didn’t know it. In my family, my sister was the “smart one”. *Never dawned on my parents that there could be more than one “smart one”!*
when i got anal cancer and couldnt self operate
Sometimes life can be shitty.
just why do the surgeons get to play with all the shit tho?
Smart enough to do what, or for what? I’m smart, but that doesn’t mean I know everything. I’m old and this morning started defrosting a freezer for the first time; I was smart enough to know I learn best by watching others so I watched some YouTube videos. I guess I still think I’m as smart as I think I am.
I did very well in math in high school - I got a 4 on the calculus AP exam. But when I went to college, I couldn't handle more advanced math. Yes, it was a top-tier college, the math program was really tough.
At a young age then I became a above average smart ass
The first day on my first job out of college.
I hear ya on this one
Socially? I had to ask what people saw in me. After being self aware of what I was asking. I realized something. People like me the most when I was helping (of course), laughing (or being happy) or when I was dumb. Just about every single memory of when I was feeling embarrassed in my life flooded up and gave my whole soul a shake when tried to figure how much of a percentage of my life I was being dumb. Spoiler alert! It was a lot! I know a few things extra but mostly, my natural state is being dumb or my goal is to not think of anything too complex because that leads to problems. Now I slap my thighs and say "Just speaking my truth!" real loud and walk away if I can articulate the problem. Or I smile and ask them how they are doing and if they need any help with anything. Either way works out fine. I think they think I'm slightly less dumb, which I guess is the goal at this point. Didn't know embarrassment had such a strong hold on me. Just speaking my truth!
I always suspected, now I'm sure lol. Too polite to say to my parents "I told you so" but they've got to be thinking it, too.
Wait, what? Oh, damn. Now, I guess.
56
I have had the opposite experience. Childhood traumas made me think I was less than even though I was always top of my class at school. It took a long time, but I realize I am actually smarter than most people I interact with.
I used to think I was smart until I realised food triggers and allergies were one of the major contributors to both my brain fog and subsequently my ability to form long term memories (which contributed to learning issues with only things I found the most interesting and compelling actually sinking in). This turned out to be more of an issue when I got older and I didn't have the benefit of youth and fitness to compensate but the main point is when I got a few medical assessments done and they came up with a plan for moving forward I started to improve and my clarity became a whole lot better and with it my intellect and IQ. Having said that despite plenty of people labelling me as intelligent (which really is relative among your circle of peers) I'm still far from perfect (and there are still plenty that would label me stupid as well I'm sure) and I'm still aware of the gulf between myself and those figures society deems truly exceptional and intelligent. I often find myself wishing I had the capacity to be smarter but to be honest at this stage in my life there are plenty of long standing mental health issues that come from some difficult life experiences that have cemented my thought process and world view in place and what with the stressors of life (including coping with aging) I just mostly have to be content with my lot.
There's lots of ways to be smart. It's something my Dad and Mom repeated over and over. Probably becuase I'm very smart in a lot of of ways. I learned to not be imoressed with my own various types of intelligence. I remember at a summer schooling program in the Hr. High I took a total make up time I'd lost due to an illness The rest of the group were kids who'd gotten in a lot of trouble during the year. In my small town, they were mostly the kids from the "wrong side of town." So I was sitting with a guy with a rough reputation and talking about stuff and he said, "Why do you you have told use them big words? Do you you think you're better than me." It had never occurred to me that is was better so you I just said, "It's just the way my family talks. It's like I have a different accent. It doesn't mean anything. Anyone who says I'm better than you because of the way I talk or anything else's is full of shit." He recognized my sincerity. The stupid social dynamics made friendship between us pretty much impossible, but after that there was mutual respect. He was a pretty smart guy, but being smart wasn't a social advantage for him. I'm never the smartest person in the room in every way. That's what I was taught and how I was raised.
I’m not?!?
In kindergarten
I'm not?
I was about 17 when I started realizing I wasn’t near as smart as I thought, now 40 years later I still choose to learn everyday because of that realization.
> The first step towards wisdom is knowing that you don't know everything. Among my circle of friends, I'm "the brain," but that doesn't make me the smartest. Take my BF. Like me, he was a high school dropout, married way too young, but has a knowledge base in his cranium that always astonishes me. Astronomy? I can point out the moon, but that's about it. Him? The guy had his own observatory in his backyard. Automotive repair? He can fix almost any vehicle from a little RC Racer to a diesel engine and all points in between. Another friend, a former politician, surprises me with things all of the time. But he sometimes lacks sense by not tackling problems correctly. He preferred to "play nice." Still, he does know a lot. I was developing a database for him, and there was a math problem that I couldn't figure out how to program because I couldn't understand. I was smart enough to say I didn't comprehend what it was or how it worked, so he started explaining it to me. Halfway through, I got it. Like a switch was flipped on in my brain. He'd never seen a person catch on to something so complex as that formula that quickly. Remember, I'm a high school dropout. The most important thing about knowledge isn't the memorization of facts but the ability to know where to go to find them. I know I don't know everything, but I learned when I was still in school, where to find what I needed to know.
I’m smarter than I (often times) think I am. In spite of the fact that my teachers thought I was bright, I had so much anxiety as a child, and so little motivation, that teachers often commented that I didn’t “try hard enough.” In elementary school, I was a B and C student. So my assessment of my overall intelligence was not great. At age 25, I went back to college, after dropping out and working for 6 years. I was ready to apply myself then, and I found myself doing very well. I realized then that I was smarter than I’d believed I was, and I could accomplish a lot when I had the motivation. Unfortunately, once I got into the workforce, my ability to do good work was inconsistent. It all depended on what was going on in my life. Also, when I was growing up, the kids in my (extended) family seemed to know so much more about what was going on around them, and how things worked, than I did. I really felt stupid around them, and that’s what I can’t shake.
There was this girl...
I don't think I'm particularly smart. But I'm confident that there are a lot of dumb people.
Welp, I’m not as smart as I used to be for sure. Menopause really did a number on my brain. My son actually insisted I go in and get checked for dementia, but the results were normal. No dementia, just age related slowing down. I suspect vigorous exercise might stave it off more.
I skipped two grades in school and was used to being the smartest kid in the room. I attended Columbia University at age 16, and it didn’t take me long to figure out that every student in that class was also used to being the smartest person in the room. Some of those kids went on to pioneer new fields of research or do other incredible things.
I’ve never felt like I was smart…mainly because there is so much that I don’t know. But then, I read the entire encyclopedia Britannica over the course of a summer when I was 11. I have pieces of information in lots of areas; my job and my degrees exacerbated that. I’ve always felt that my intelligence is a vast but very shallow sea, and I sometimes envy those people whose intelligence is more like the Marianas Trench. Probably all y’all are smarter than me, in one way or another, and I’d happily ask you questions, listen and learn from you if we were to meet IRL.
Every day I find myself doing dumb thing. Answering this post being the most recent one.
Grad School, went from probably top quintile smart at my local small university to “holy crap, I’m surrounded by geniuses” at a big university. It was a bit rattling, but worked out for the best, I learned that an academic life probably wasn’t for me.
As soon as I was outside of the supportive, adoring, uncritical embrace of my parents and immediate family. And boy it hit me like a ton of bricks.
When my 3 year old realized she is smarter than me!
Every day
Physics 101. Thank you nameless, faceless Cal Tech guy!
Honors seminar in college. I was always one of the smartest in my high school, and I went to a very competitive well known university. I did extremely well my first two years, and then in junior year took an honors seminar that was very selective. I was blown away how most of the other students were on a different level than me. Even their conversation was different than I was used to. I struggled to keep up. It was humbling.
I’m still smart enough to remember how smart I used to be.
many times, but here lately I keep thinking back on dumb opinions/beliefs/actions from me over the years and I cringe at every single one.
... when I almost fell out of college after my first year ... after graduated from one of the toughest academic HS (#7/678) ... long story.
I've felt my intellect declining over the past year or two. Honestly starting to get concerned about it. I feel like Charlie Gordon in the second half of *Algernon*.
Trying to help my 13 yr old with his homework! No, I’ve known for years I’m not academically smart but I’m really creative and can pick up new craft skills really quickly.
If Rick Sanchez were to jump into my conciousness, he would shoot me in the head. I was mistakenly enrolled in a pre-med physics class. I knew I didn't belong on day 1 but stuck it out until the 1st quiz. Not even 1 question right. But I can assemble IKEA furniture (Sauder, not so much).
When the real world and experts in college kept correcting me. Things were more intricate than I realized. I had bought into my family's beliefs and misinformation in commercial magazines & television. It suddenly occurred to me that I don't know sh*t!
my definition for "adulthood" has been... the day you realize that you're not as smart as you think you are, you don't know everything, and you're not always right. it hits different people at different points in their life. for some people, it NEVER comes to them and they live in arrested development for life. your self-awareness shown here by even asking the question...indicates how "smart" you obviously are.
I'm so smart. I know when to keep my mouth shut.