The video resonated with me. Looking back I think that I studied pure math in further education because I thought that others perceived it as the hardest subjec

The video resonated with me. Looking back I think that I studied pure math in further education because I thought that others perceived it as the hardest subject you could study and therefore would think highly of me for studying it. I think that motivated me much longer than Sanderson too, as I think it's the main reason I started my PhD in a topic that probably wasn't the most interesting to me. Along the way I developed an appreciation for the innate beauty of the subject but these days I find it much more rewarding to work on something that's useful to someone else no matter whether it's particularly easy or hard. The sad thing about wasting your youth trying to be seen as smart or successful is that later in life you'll probably have much less freedom of choice in what to work on.