Being “gifted”, only makes you wish you weren’t sometimes

You're gifted enough to cruise through the first few stages of your education without trying, so you forge an identity as "the smart kid" but never build up skills in learning or studying, so when you finally get to a level where your natural intelligence can't carry you anymore you can't keep up with the people who did learn those skills and you start to fail and lose your identity as the smart kid which causes you to break down because that'd how you defined yourself for so long..... or so I've heard.

I am good with knowing my deficiencies. What sucks is being told that they are my fault because I should be "smart enough to overcome them".

The guilt that "you could have done more with your life", despite being a successful engineer with a happy family.

There's that joke about wearing regular clothes on Halloween to go as the "gifted kid", and when people ask what you're supposed to be you sigh and say you were supposed to be a lot of things.

Let's be honest, most of us think we're in the blue zone, when we are probably in the red zone

I'm in this picture and it makes me keenly aware of what I could accomplish if I didn't just coast by

I still suffer from this. Promising early start, intense self-confidence issues and depression by the end.

Fun fact: programs for gifted kids have historically been far more underfunded than programs for other exceptional students.

By the way, the euphemism of "exceptional children" pleases my autistic brain way more than any other word for Special Education students. It has all the compliment-sounding qualities of "Special Needs" but is even more literal than any previous euphemism. It literally means "kids that teachers need to make exceptions for"

This is funny, but even the most intelligent people are inflicted with this. Don't let it keep you down, we cannot be good at everything.

Its been consistently self-reported by Harvard students. And another effect is present, too - excellence leads to being placed in competitive environments, where everyone else is just as excellent. And this can make brilliant people feel stupid.

Did you know that 80% of people think they're above average intelligence?

There is no green region. It's blue all the way up.

Ah, I see the stereotype of everyone thinking of themselves as "lazy genius" is something we've carried over from Reddit. We're all above average intelligent and could really achieve something if we just bothered to work hard and apply ourselves!

lol

I wish my iq was 20 higher or lower, idk just gimme out of the blue zone

Being gifted only refers to intelligence most of the time. But intelligence alone won't make a person excel at their field. You can be among the most intelligent people but still stay in the blue zone.

I think excellence comes to be when intelligence meets motivation, purpose, creativity, social skills or other factors.

And when it comes to the blue zone resilience would be a key factor. If one is intelligent of course you realize your faults quicker as well. However it takes resilience to keep going in the face of your own doubt.

That's why in the real world people who are very convinced of themselves and their own ideas will get far even if not gifted at all.

I like the term “twice exceptional”. All of my biggest strengths are aspects of myself that come with tradeoffs. For 20 years straight, I was praised for the strengths and scolded for the tradeoffs. Motherfucker, you can’t enjoy how quickly I learn things I’m interested in and also treat me like I’m lazy when you expect me to sustain equal amounts of interest in 10 different things that bore me and I fail. You can’t enjoy all the art and tech I make and then get annoyed when it’s difficult to break me out of a hyperfixation.

I firmly believe that the tortured artist stereotype is bullshit. There’s nothing about being an artist that requires you to be miserable. But we sure do treat people like shit when their brains work differently.

Fun fact about being in that green region: Don't! It's like being in the blue region, but green!

The creator of this comic is a self-described pro-sweatshop neoliberal, which explains the "woe is me, I'm too smart for my own good" delusions.

I don't mind being aware of everything, but I do mind that nobody else is

Getting mature early is a curse

Cuz you are left with a wee little tolerance for biased thoughts and advices

on the topic of iq, i have a lot of problems with the way people seem to interact with the concept. there's a bunch of assumptions all baked into it:

• iq is a variable that actually exists in nature

• people's iq is static and follows a standard distribution

• iq tests are capable of objectively measuring or at least approximating this variable

• this variable is a good stand-in or even synonymous with cognitive ability

• cognitive ability is univariate or single-faceted, able to be described with a single number

• cognitive ability equates to or correlates with usefulness, happiness, sociability, success, whatever

• finally, that any of this really matters, like in a materially impactful way, or is something that we should focus on

it's not that each of these statements is 100% wrong, it's that each shouldn't be assumed to be true. but the way i usually see iq invoked kinda just uncritically runs with all of them, contained within a neat little ideological package.

Who wants to bet that most commenters will place themselves in the blue zone?

Thankfully I can look down on everyone as I’m firmly at the top of that curve.

Awareness of your own weaknesses is the first step to make them your strengths.

I was in the "gifted and talented" program as a kid and all it meant was I got more homework lmao. Good thing I loved reading and actually enjoyed being assigned novel chapters

I reject uniform distribution theory and only recognize the graph that looks like a pair of torpedo titties.

Like I'm even good enough to have imposter syndrome.

I believe this is called the Salieri zone

was just joking around with a sibling about how some of the most intensely "being highly intelligent is my identity" people from high school with supportive families grew up to be dumb as hell.

the gifted valedictorian became a nurse, then went full "iraq had WMDs, but it was classified" chud, quit the workforce to have 4 children, is a god-tier horder with rooms full of actual garbage, and now is entangled in several MLMs shoveling a spouse's very high income into a blackhole.

the "actually, i have a 160 IQ" inherited a bunch of $$, bought a bunch of vehicles, had 5 kids, went full blown "dance mom" facebook+social media freakshow, and spends most of their effort trying to cultivate inappropriate relationships and fabricate dramas with other married spouses in their neighborhood.

excellence and success are subjective. a life of curiosity, personal enrichment, family, and friends can be excellent without needing accolades or other features of careerist striving. but i'll be damned if some really "smart" people don't take their potential and, in defiance of the odds, turn it into a shit smoothie.

Others have touched on this, but ultimately the most vital trait a person can possess is perseverance and a bias for action. I would gladly work with a mediocre person who works relentlessly at improving their skills and figuring out solutions. I don't enjoy working with "gifted" people who have plenty of ideas and few actions to show for it. Intelligence can make you risk averse, and you're useless if you're too afraid to take any action.

Had the top conversation in third grade. Have spent the rest of my life in the blue zone.

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Yeah, the less stupid you are, the more you realize how stupid you really are.

The first 3 are the flag of Romania :) 🇹🇩

Edit: (but reversed)

Gifted kids aren't necessarily smarter than anyone else. They just develop their adult levels of intelligence faster than normal. So there is no guarantee that the amount they will be able to maintain that performance gap going forward. Indeed, they are likely to do worse as they never had to develop the skills to do well in school. So once school gets hard enough for them to need those skills they don't have them.

Boy I sure wish I had a 6 hr video explaining the incredibly racist origins of the Bell curve which has no value at all scientifically speaking, perhaps even by a Liverpudlian narrator of sorts

Ah, the Asperger's Zone

Show this comic to 100 people and almost all will think they’re in the blue zone.

This is like those ADHD memes which just list every one of life’s inconveniences or challenges as some kind of “symptom.”

Everyone has these feelings, it’s not a curse, it’s just life.

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Godamnit

The smart kid who's just not smart enough to achieve the big goals and should always suffer from what could have been,living an average life.

IQ is bullshit. The gifted kids were just the kids that had supportive homelives