I want to echo this because you had other replies agreeing and I feel that my anecdotal experience of this might actually have meaning. I was extremely lazy thr

I want to echo this because you had other replies agreeing and I feel that my anecdotal experience of this might actually have meaning. I was extremely lazy through school and college and was usually at or near the top of every class until I hit some point where lazy could no longer cut it. But that just narrowed subjects down until I was able to be very lazy at uni and still do well. If I hadn't had a couple of incidents (bike accident and unrelated health issue) I probably would have scored a higher degree and been motivated to stay in academia. In work I feel like I've drifted into roles that are fantastic compared to my friends at school + uni who worked really hard, and I expected the opposite to happen. The moment that comes back to me particularly is when I visited a friend who was doing an astrophysics degree at another uni in their 2nd year. I attended the lectures with her and my casual knowledge from reading on the subject had covered what they were learning. I thought it was interesting and followed along just fine. Talking with her and her group of friends afterwards, they were really struggling. Thing is, although she was a really hard worker, she didn't have much interest in the subject. She just chose it because she did well in physics at school. She only did OK, so a middling degree in astrophysics setting up well for a career in admin.