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yeah I had that. For me I had an early childhood like these kids except my parents weren't even that active in accelerating me. My dad gave me a science book fo

yeah I had that. For me I had an early childhood like these kids except my parents weren't even that active in accelerating me. My dad gave me a science book for middle schoolers when I was 4 and taught me my times tables. That, along with my incessant reading that got me reading history and literature at an adult level by the age of at least 10 meant that I was years ahead for most of my school career. I felt like I was wasting so much time to be in school, and all I got from it was being relentlessly bullied, to the point where I stopped engaging at all out of protest. I started to take pride in being as lazy as possible and getting top marks anyway and teachers who told me to work harder to reach my potential pissed me off because I knew everything they wanted me to work hard on was just too mind numbing to be worth it for me. In classes where I was too objectively ahead to be ignored, like Latin where I had literally already completed the first two textbooks they were using, they deliberately held me behind for everyone else to catch up. So it just seemed like a fucking scam when they told me to "reach my potential" I crashed and burned at about 17 because of this. Suddenly more long research projects that required discipline that I had purposefully thrown away were required rather than just acing exams effortlessly. I got moved to a private school where the kids around me had actually been receiving a proper education and the standards were higher. And I took one of my worst subjects as a higher level class (maths) and failed exams for the first time in my life. My identity was so tied to being a genius and I was so unused to not succeeding effortlessly I pretty much gave up. Like this shattering of my reality just made me full on depressed. Since then I've actually become stupider from the extra lack of effort and now I have severe issues dealing with frustration when not being immediately good at things and maintaining discipline or any focus whatsoever. I have so much resentment for the schooling system because I truly believe if I had been moved 2 years up as a kid I would have relished the challenge, kept gaining new skills and not created this learned helplessness for myself.

jddj 2y ago
I've been trying to address this recently in my own thinking, as I have the same tendency to overvalue the idea of effortless success. It has coloured far too many interactions and decisions in my life. I've made some progress recently by trying to gradually tease it apart: who is this performance for, anyway? Why is it more important to me -- the monkey juggling in front of the mirror -- that the ability comes naturally? Surely the self-esteem that can be milked from some innate aptitude is limited compared to what there is from demonstrated improvement through conscientious practice. Learned or not, it's a lazy, shallow and fragile foundation for one's identity. Success without effort is too much of a cheap endorphin shot to qualify as worthy of more than a passing thought.

jddj 2y ago

I've been trying to address this recently in my own thinking, as I have the same tendency to overvalue the idea of effortless success. It has coloured far too many interactions and decisions in my life. I've made some progress recently by trying to gradually tease it apart: who is this performance for, anyway? Why is it more important to me -- the monkey juggling in front of the mirror -- that the ability comes naturally? Surely the self-esteem that can be milked from some innate aptitude is limited compared to what there is from demonstrated improvement through conscientious practice. Learned or not, it's a lazy, shallow and fragile foundation for one's identity. Success without effort is too much of a cheap endorphin shot to qualify as worthy of more than a passing thought.