Why Being Gifted Actually Makes Life Harder

▼ Timestamps ▼
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00:00 - Preview
00:11 - Lecture begins
05:27 - Hitting the wall
08:04 - Trying to change
17:05 - Intellect and ego
23:11 - Help seeking AND help rejecting
32:39 - What does it say about you?
40:45 - Intellect can be hijacked
46:10 - Abandoning your identity
51:14 - Challenge your assumptions
1:02:10 - Meditation

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[markkocsicska]

1. Skip the tutorial.
2. Literally skill trough the whole game because you never knew you could upgrade your gear to deal more damage and recieve less.
3. Eventually boss takes so many hits and kills you in one hit that you feel like the game is unfair.
4. Leave the game entirely thinking it is unbalanced. While in reality you were playing on a self-imposed nightmare difficulty, because you never knew you were supposed to upgrade your gear, let alone that it is possible.

[dante]

I was called "gifted" all throughout my entire childhood. Was a very fast learner, excelled in several subjects, frequently praised and commended by teachers... yet here I am, 30 years old making a living as an uber/delivery driver.. I had the tools, but absolutely no idea or guidance on how to use them properly. I feel so unprepared and ill-equipped to survive in this world that it honestly hurts to think about..

Edit: Thanks for the feedback everyone. Not trying to play victim or elicit any pity. Just being honest, in case anyone out there can relate.

[Kattywampus]

Hi, I'm a 45 year old gifted kid who failed at life and never amounted to anything. I'm graduating from an online tech school today, after messing up in college 4 times. I didn't tell anyone. Thanks for explaining why. ❤

[wovrmfx]

As a gifted kid, I have an absolute fear of failure. It makes my skin crawl. Therefore, growing up, I didn’t do any sports or extracurricular activities because “I suck at physical stuff.” Due to myself being gifted, I struggle to also show emotion. This video is the closest anyone’s gotten to understanding me, including myself. So, thank you so very much for clearing the fog. 🙏

[jbouchard]

My biggest hard lesson to learn myself was that we never learned how to ask for help, or even that help was available when you ask. We never needed help so we didn't learn how or when to ask.

[matchasgotcha]

In my experience, many gifted students I know have either had learning disabilities or behavioural issues. This explains many students like them "learn differently". Now add raised expectations and they're under an immense amount of pressure, sometimes without the knowledge or resources to deal with their shortcomings. I know many parents of gifted kids whose children are likely on the spectrum, but they refused to get them diagnosed as if it would be an admission of weakness 😔

[rakma]

The main difficulty is not in the self-awareness, it is in the self-confidence and self-compassion needed to actually recover after the self-identity falls apart.

[sandracorso]

Wow. I feel like my whole life suddenly makes sense.

I have three things to add here, from my own experience:

1. Growing up, I was always expected to be the smartest kid in the class, in every subject. But as we go through life, we invariably encounter someone who is more gifted than we are, at least at some things. And we invariably encounter some subject that doesn't come effortlessly to us, and beat ourselves up over it, because being 'smart' means we're supposed to be good at everything.

2. I was actively discouraged (almost forbidden?) from 'wasting my time' on anything I couldn't be 'the best' at from the very beginning. As in, if you can't be better than Michelangelo, there's absolutely no use in pursuing anything creative. If you can't top Beethoven, there's no point in taking music. Better stick to those things you already KNOW you can excel at, and leave the rest alone. Because how would it look if you weren't exceptional?

3. Sometimes when a 'smart' kid asks for help, the response is 'You're a smart kid. You figure it out.' Even from teachers.

I never did get the hang of studying. At 60, I still avoid things I'm not sure I can effortlessly succeed at, at least until they are no longer avoidable. I've had to teach myself a lot of things over the years, as the world changes so quickly. And I've learned to accept that there are some things I'm just never going to be good at, and that sometimes adequate is enough to get by on until I can pay someone with the talent to do it well.

Life, man. What a ride! 😂

[soulsbane]

There is another serious problem. Gifted kids can be intensely unsatisfied with surface level understanding. If a teacher lacks a deeper grasp of a subject and can't answer the right questions, then "learning" itself starts to feel futile. Authority figures designated to help you gain knowledge and comprehension can themselves become the bottleneck of intellectual development. It gets worse if parents also cannot field enough questions and the constant curiosity accidentally becomes a probe of limitations that finds the edge. This leads to an isolation bordering on desolation.

Sincerely, a 44-year old "gifted kid" who started school at "5y+1day" and crashed and burned in college, and got my PhD at 41.

[memeperor_]

What he said about substituting IQ for other methods of learning really hit with me. I'm in college and have ADHD/ASD, and I'm FINALLY starting to really struggle and be challenged. When I learn math, I pretty much ignore all the concepts the way they're fed to us in the curriculum, and I just let my pattern-finding brain do all the work for me. I just watch people work out problems, and memorize the patterns of the steps and recreate them. I studied for the first time in my life a few weeks ago for a cal 2 test, and it felt great, but I get burnt out super fast. I'm starting to learn how to learn.

Okay wtf how is this video so god damn accurate? How does he know I have 0 emotional awareness or understanding?!?!?!

[fearsomefawkes]

I dropped out of university at 22. At 29 I decided to go back and finish my degree because I realized my mind and body would not let me work in kitchens for the rest of my life. When I applied I didn't know if I would make it past the first month. Not only did I graduate with distinction, I'm now half way through my masters.

Going back is hard, but it was 100% worth it. And, most of the time, it was soooo much easier to do as a full adult and not a new adult. My mental health was better. I had more emotional supports. I had more and healthier coping mechany. I was more excited and had a reason beyond 'because you're supposed to' for being there.

No one ever judged me for being older. Anyone I talked to about it thought it was really cool that I made the hard decision to come back and we're fully supportive.

Just because something was to hard when you were 19 doesn't mean it's going to always be to hard. You just have to be brave and try.

[bladongarland]

Even worse than being a "gifted kid" is being a "gifted kid" who was never gifted to begin with. Imagine dealing with all of the same issues that come with assuming that identity but never really having the capabilities that the gifted have

[mrblok]

Takeaways:
→ Gifted kid complex is resistant to change.
→ Over usage of IQ to get ahead in life leads to under development in other areas (emotional, interpersonal, …) .
→ Emotion and intellect are the greatest contributors to change.
→ It leads to avoidance of experiences with failure and effortful success.
→ Much harder to control cognitive bias.
→ They are help seeking and help rejecting.
→ There is no perfect formula for most scenarios in life.
→ Hardest part to do is giving up your identity of who you are.
→ Challenge your assumptions.
→ Don’t use theory as a substitute for experience.

[oscarcapac]

As a former "gifted kid", the biggest breakthrough for me was that being gifted is not a curse, nor a big part of your identity. It's just an asset that you can use, or not, to solve your problems and get what you want out of life. Everything in this video is true, but once you catch up and learn how to make efforts, you are in a very good spot because you can work both hard and smart. More brain power = easier to learn skills that will give you a much better identity than being a "gifted kid" or "smart"

[Cat-and-Tilly]

This is so on target. I’m 65 years old. I’ve been in therapy for over thirty years dealing with the problems you’ve addressed…but none of my therapists ever shared this kind of analysis. Not only was I called gifted, I was also called self-sufficient. I had difficulty in college (though I have a Masters degree, I took the easiest classes I could find; if I thought I was going to get lower than a B grade I would either drop the class or withdraw from school. It took me 7 years to get a BA and 6 to get an MBA). My relationships were always difficult. Though I’m doing better with friendships, connecting to compatible and supportive people, I haven’t sought a romantic relationship in over 20 years. I used to dance, but the what I call “mating ritual” associated with it and not getting a dance partner at an event, was too much of a hit to my ego/self-esteem. At work, I am an underachiever for sure. I can’t play the game to get ahead. I haven’t enough esteem to be a professional or get into a managerial position regardless of my degree. No amount of giftedness can help—or If I do get noticed as smart, I quickly land in hot water because I don’t have the social skill nor ability to endure a difficult learning curve.😢

[Hexanitrobenzene]

8:04 Trying to change
9:44 No amount of logic actually creates behavioural change.
The most potent changers of behaviour are emotions.
12:16 Identity: effortless success
14:08 narrowing of identity
14:55 Intellect is trained, but regulation of emotions and ego is weak.
15:13 Instead of discovering who they are, they are told who they are.
17:05 Intellect and ego
17:22 Ego hijacking intelect
19:58 cognitive bias is strong
21:22 "I am a special case"
23:11 Help seeking and help rejecting
24:04 Reading into possiblities of the future.
26:35 Ego protecting itself.
29:08 Looking for a perfect formula.
32:20 "Why didn't you do it 10 years ago ?"
32:39 What does it say about you?
33:28 Do you wanna be "stupid kid" with a life or a "gifted kid" with no life ?
35:40 The more gifted we are, the more we think that things should be easy for us.
36:20 The change requires abandoning everything you invested in.
40:45 Intelect can be hijacked
42:51 The very thing that can change your mind is the thing you avoid.
43:32 Finding solace in being both blessed and cursed.
46:10 Abandoning your identity
46:40 Theory becomes a substitute for experience,
thus it becomes separate from reality.
47:37 remedies: strengthening your emotional awareness
48:35 Do you get to say that your life is hard ? No, nononono... :|
49:34 remedies: understanding ego
49:43 "If I do this thing, how will it change the way I see myself ?"
51:14 Challenge your assumptions
51:14 Your intellect is used to protect you, not challenge you.
53:10 remedies: get experience
55:31 Questions

[AlexanderMartinez-kdcz]

"int is 25, wisdom is 3"
a better metaphor has never been conceived.

[kimberlycassaday]

Ohhh boy. We need more of this.

I skipped 2 grades, MENSA level IQ. I also have ADHD, so I have the executive functioning of a potato. 🥔

I dropped out of high school and have really struggled in my adult years.

We need to really bring this to light in our public education system.

[SquidBoy]

Dude, I was so broken from the gifted kid college experience. I got in to the honors college, full ride, great music scholarship. But I just felt like I couldn't get stuff done and finish it. I thought I had ADHD. I remember spending 20hrs trying to write a 5 page paper and just being unable to do it. I eventually had a breakdown and went to the counselors who just wanted to treat depression first and wouldn't evaluate me when I asked. I went along with it but quickly just stopped going. That went on for a couple years and I ended up dropping out, then trying to come back a year and a half later, which didn't work. I was in my senior year and decided to just abandon it. I went into tech because I liked computers, and then a couple years later I ended up teaching myself web development and landing a job out I absolutely love, way out earning what I would have been making teaching. But that year I taught myself web dev, it feels like I filled in so many gaps, learned how to learn, and just kind of figured out what I needed to do in my life. And I DID get evaluated after I taught myself and got a job and was pretty damn ADHD, fuck you college counselors.

[fotnite_]

That "cognitive empathy" thing really hit home. This kind of thing is precisely why I've struggled with relationships, "feeling what the other person is feeling" is not something I can remember ever having experienced.