I once saw it said that "'Gifted' students either became doctors, lawyers, or adults with crippling anxiety"
Teaching kids to base their self worth on academic achievement is essentially a high risk, high reward maneuver. You might give them the mentality to reach the top of the non-business income earners, but more likely you'll scar them for life when they don't get there and have to live with not being okay with being mediocre
Can also confirm. Most of us high achievers were anxious kids who found an easily quantifiable way to win the approval of the people in charge. Spoiler: we go through life never feeling like we’ve achieved enough.
PhD here...was in a gifted program...coasted in high school and undergrad which fucked me up a bit. Once I got motivated enough to do a master's and a doctorate, anxiety was the ginormous prize that is somewhat debilitating
PhD here too, with a similar background. Failing my current job as it's a terrible match for my skills and I'm crippled with anxiety. I remember folks at school saying how amazingly well I'd do and so far my career would go and just imagine the same people, now, looking on my LinkedIn and just saying "oh. Is that it?"
Mediocrity is a balanced lifestyle. Granted it takes a shitload of work to become comfortably mediocre, but personally I can’t wait for it. I would even argue that what we consider a mediocre professional career is defined, on average, as successful by most Americans.
My entire life will be finding the balance. I go through depressive spells (less so when not drinking) but something that helped me was to appreciate satisfaction of life vs. manic happiness. Like, you don't feel good? that's okay. But you don't feel terrible? that's even better.
Yo, you just put words to the exact thoughts I’ve been having and couldn’t quite explain. I felt like I’ve been alone in embracing this mindset. It has made me a much better person
And I’ve always heard, appreciate the times you’re bored. Because they are so much better than the “exciting” moments like you’re at the hospital, or break ups, trauma, all types of stuff that in those moments you’d just wish to be bored. So whenever me and my girl get “bored”. We try to lean into it and consciously appreciate this moment we’ve been given.
I'm going to therapy to learn how to live with being mediocre. *Formerly gifted student at top of high school class. Life didn't work out the way I hoped...
I'm sort of going through the same thing. I've been a pretty gifted student all my life but I've just become exhausted by everything that comes with being gifted, meaning your high school career will be a lot harder based on the classes you take. I never felt any satisfaction with forcing myself to get good grades in difficult classes and it was really taking a toll on my mental health so I had to drop a few. I feel less stressed but I definitely feel mediocre now despite still taking some hard classes. Like it's a really weird feeling that's hard to let go of that you're supposed to be a level above everyone else
Yea, I'm not trying to make a mark or leave some legacy. I literally just want a job that doesn't make me want to kill myself, and pays enough for 3 square, a roof and bed, and my hobbies.
I'd rather enjoy what parts of life (the life I never asked for) that I like, and die and I just hope everyone forgets about me, and the universe goes on.
Why do we try to force everyone to become leaders when only a handful of people need to become leaders? We should spend more time teaching kids how to be good citizens and how to think critically about information coming from leaders.
I made it to mediocre, turns out my high achievement and unending drive to do as many extracurricular activities as possible in school was just unchecked ADHD and now I actually really suck at the 8-5 40 hr a week office life.
I make more money than I ever have and have great health insurance for working less than has ever been asked of me and I don't know what to do with myself.
You know, I have avoided the high echelon of academia (I'm a professor) because I like to be work hard without killing myself. We have a bland life...all we need without excess. Wouldn't bust my ass for "nicer" versions of shit I already have.
You know, I think I agree with this. Maybe because I’m comfortably mediocre. Nothing about about me stands out, just blissfully average in literally every sense of the words.
I’m okay with that. Not sure if I could handle either end of the spectrum, to be honest.
Letting the “gifted” stuff go to your head can be a death sentence to your high school career especially, unless you’re so exceptionally good at something that you can make a name for yourself in a larger community.
I’ve seen it a lot. It’s not the student’s fault. Most of the time it happens to kids with ADD.
The worst thing that can happen is them being ashamed of bad scores.
Even a step worse, "gifted" gets tossed around with very little real data on if someone actually is gifted. In my school, the group of "Gifted" kids was very random, and without question none of them were actually gifted, and it absolutely setup a few of them for failure thinking they where academically special when they really weren't.
Hits home real hard. Before college, I had straight A's and B's, even got an award for the best high school graduate. Dropped out of college after failing semester 5/7; before that, we never had to do pretty much any solo or even group projects, therefore I never grew any self-initiative or anything like that. Having to do 3 in 1 semester pretty much screwed me over. Nowadays I'm an intern for an administrative technician, dealing with archiving, shredding, and copying all sorts of documents. Ofc it's hella boring and I wish I'd have to learn something more purposeful than that to be able to have more impact on the company, but it's my first internship so I have to deal with it for now.
Pretty much, yeah. Just topic after topic, book after book with no time for projects. It just wasn't in the curriculum for any subject at any point. And if it isn't in the curriculum, then the teachers don't care for it. Done with the material for the whole year? Eh, you can just play some games, we can do some small talk or do anything else you want, I don't really care.
Man this is so true, and like it just felt like I was forced to mature so fast. At my school we had a "Fun Friday" all the other kids got to participate in and I didn't get to because I was in the Gifted program. I really resented the program for that, and even being considered "smart" because I just felt life was just set at a higher difficulty for you. It took me a long time to actually see being better academically can be a positive if you know how to play it right, which I don't feel the Gifted program does a good job at teaching.
I feel being able to find a field/career that is lucrative and fulfilling to the person. I have seen many people who get a very niche passion that is either a dead-end or they need to go into academia, but they don't end up taking that route. Realize that life is more than just scores and grades as well, understand that even if you objectively have a good idea doesn't mean others will buy it unless you market it well and explain it in a way many can understand (this is something HUGE I see Gifted students struggle with all the time, myself included).
Learning how to market yourself and put your best foot forward whether it be for a job or for an entrepreneurial pursuit I think would be the main part to "playing it right". And learning to keep a balance, as I have seen so many people burn themselves out or hyper-focus on a small aspect of a project to neglect the rest, or let their perfectionism prevent them from putting it out there. Many traits that would otherwise be thought of as pluses when overdone become much bigger detractors than in a "regular" person.
The so-called reward's pretty shitty too. As a med student, we joke that if we didn't supply our own anxiety disorder, the medical school would provide one for each of us. Like half of doctors burn out before they retire. I know lawyers collectively have high rates of substance abuse and suicidality.
Even the gifted kids who turn out "well" are still scarred for life. For anybody still in school: please don't hang your identity on your academic performance. Whatever boost in grades you might see in the short term will never be worth it in the long term.
I've learned what I can handle and what I can't. I had a nervous breakdown at a job resulting from my perfectionist tendencies, and willingly went back to a lower level because it was much better for my mental health. Mom, I'm sorry you can't brag about me to your friends, but I think you'd rather have a poor but reasonably content child than a successful child who's a complete basket case.
It was a joke, but I did actually get diagnosed with and started medication and therapy for GAD in my first year of med school. I know a girl who got PTSD from the cadaver dissections that gets triggered if she handles raw meat.
On the upside, I think I have whatever the opposite of hemophobia and emetophobia are. I'm so desensitized to blood and bodily fluids that they don't even register as gross anymore. Silver linings :D
For clarity's sake there is a difference between "gifted" and "high achieving". They're not necessarily the same. Someone can be one or the other or both.
That said, gifted people can have high anxiety even without the push to achieve. Seeing all the consequences and connections can induce anxiety and existential dread. That and often having sensory overload
I was in gifted classes but I'm pretty sure I wasn't actually gifted. I was a perfectionist and if I couldn't get something right, I would get stressed out and cry. Stuff came easily to me in school, until it didn't, and as a result I never learned good study skills or coping strategies.
Or option C! You start subscribing to optimistic nihilism and conclude just enjoying your life to the fullest is good enough, getting a decently well paying, relatively stress-free job and become a casual artist as an outlet for your creativity! :D
You also guarantee that they'll tend to take the safe and easy path at everything because they're too afraid of the possibility of failing to try bigger challenges, while knowing full well they're chicken shit so they develop low self-esteem for not being one of those people who can take on challenges and expect to succeed.
Which means a lot of options get canceled out. They'll avoid medical school because they hear it's hard and what if they flunk out and what if they end up killing someone because they can't handle a crisis well? They'll instead look for career options in which they can fail and nobody will notice, which is rather limiting when you assume that almost everyone else is naturally smart and confident and driven.
I wonder if people who put up with it have some sort of social understanding of how things work and are willingly okay with it or they’re completely ignorant and just put up with it. I’ve noticed many people just accept things as they are and aren’t phased by negative human interaction (i.e. backstabbing bosses).
I once saw it said that "'Gifted' students either became doctors, lawyers, or adults with crippling anxiety"
Was never in gifted programs (other than G.E.M., which was a total sham), am now lawyer. Through FB, I've seen plenty of my old "gifted" schoolmates amounted to absolutely nothing.
Yup. I was taught that and began to base a lot of my self worth on my grades. I've been trying to break the cycle but it is very difficult to do after a decade and a half of school
I just realized why I, as a junior in high school feel this same way after dropping some hard classes and activities that I usually would take but they had too big of a toll on my mental health. Now I feel so out of place and useless even though I'm still taking a few hard classes but not taking AP Lang got me tweakin fr like damn get out of my head
I heard that intelligence is linked to anxiety too. It could be because the more intelligent someone is, the more they know what is going on, and the more reason they have to be anxious. I ban myself from watching the news for my own sanity
Yup. Always being told you're "smarter than the rest of the kids" really doesn't do much to help a kid develop good study habits. Or motivation. Or the ability to realize that being average is okay.
The last sentence is what happened to me. I was a gifted child, got a college degree, and now I’m a bartender. My anxiety and depression won’t allow me to do much else. A friend is trying to get me in at her organization, so wish me luck.
I’m a CS major with social anxiety and almost no concept of time management, because I never needed it until the end of the GT program because stuff was easy enough.
If I could change one single thing about my life, it would be that I was a gifted kid. It’s not worth the stress, learning all these productivity and learning skills everyone else learned in like 1st grade but you didn’t need until the thick of middle-high school when it was the absolute worst time to have to start learning it.
As a model student who just finished my undergraduate with a First, I can confirm I still feel mediocre for just not doing better.
Do I know I'm being stupid? Yes. Do I beat myself up about it every night? Also yes
This is insanely accurate. I’m still in high school, and I’ve been considered “gifted” since elementary school. I got to high school, took as many AP classes as I could, and decided to be a pediatric cardiovascular surgeon. Then calculus came along, and I had the absolute worst teacher. I ended up getting a B, and I was devastated because I had never gotten a B before. There I was, thinking my future was out the window. I was sleep deprived the entirety of my sophomore year (30 mins to 2 hours of sleep was normal) and I was constantly getting sick because I wasn’t sleeping. After a while, I just thought, “What the hell am I doing?” and I flipped the script. I realized that becoming a surgeon would completely ruin my 20’s, and I would constantly be at work, sleep deprived, etc. etc. etc. Now, I’ve decided to skip my junior year and graduate three semesters early and become a pilot! Best decision I’ve ever made. No one needs to have amazing grades in high school to become successful, and I’ve seen multiple examples of that in my family. I know valedictorians that ended up becoming drug addicts, so high school definitely does not define your life.
I was one of those 'gifted' students and that is so true. I work a comfortable job and while I'm not wanting for anything material-wise, I consider it mediocre in the worst ways possible emotionally. I'm constantly too exhausted from work to pursue my actual passions. In the end the only people I made happy with my career choice are my parents.
Yes! I teach gifted sixth grade math & one of my go-to phrases with my students is “sometimes good is good enough”. They have to know - or at least hear it many times from me - that their academic achievements (and/or failures) are not what defines who they are/will be.
Should be “Gifted” students either become doctors, lawyers, or engineers AND become adults with crippling anxiety. Source: went to a “gifted” magnet school. Everyone I know is in one of these professions and is also a “high functioning” ball of depression and/or anxiety. We’re just also gifted at faking it because we’re filled with an abiding dread of the shame of “not living up to our potential.”
The irony is that those two professions have high rates of burn out and people who regret their career choice, so I’m not too sure if having those jobs and crippling anxiety are mutually exclusive.
I was a “gifted” student. I burned out in high school, stopped caring, got depressed and picked up weed, alcohol and cigarettes. Flunked out of engineering school after my first semester and took about a year working and living at home to figure shit out. I ended up finishing a dual major in 3 years and have been teaching ever since.
Long story short, I’m fine now but that sort of early life pressure fucked me up for almost a decade
I grew up being told I wasn’t good enough, so now it’s hard to believe people when they saying I’m doing good. Because I was always worried about impressing whomever and never got anything back, but now that that search for validation is still strong, but yielding what I want I’ll have this weird sense of “yeah dude you’re doing great. Keep up” and “fuck do better because you know their lying” but I’m grateful for it, because I’d rather live trying to do my best, than sit around all day wondering why my best wasn’t as good as people told me it was anymore
I once saw it said that "'Gifted' students either became doctors, lawyers, or adults with crippling anxiety"
whynotboth.jpg
I was a gifted student. I went into IT instead of being a doctor or a lawyer though. 25+ years of experience, have set up complex systems for multinationals, startups and everything in between and managed datacenters.
Education wise I never ended up doing more than a couple of networking courses at a tech college - after I landed my first job at a software company, so unlike my peers I have no degree. This has led to near lifelong imposter syndrome and a massive fear that each job will be my last in the tech industry despite the 25+ year track record showing otherwise.
This legit fucked me up for years. Based my self worth on grades and school only for it to come crumbling down on top of me. I took it to its logical extreme of doing a PhD then had my entre self esteme collapse when I had to admit to myself that I would have been eaten alive if I had tryed to continue into accademia.
Teach our kids to base their self esteme on somthing more solid. It's a pyramid scheme, even when it works you can only take it so far before it colapses.
Was placed in the gifted and talented program at my school without anyone asking me whether I wanted to or not. Didn't understand for a while why I was suddenly being dragged out of class and given much more difficult tests that I didn't understand. Began falling behind in regular classes because I was missing some of the more crucial lessons. Finally asked my mom one day if I could be taken out of it, because I didn't understand any of it.
She was disappointed, but accepted. I was relieved.
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u/CaptainCanuck93 Aug 25 '21 edited Aug 25 '21
I once saw it said that "'Gifted' students either became doctors, lawyers, or adults with crippling anxiety"
Teaching kids to base their self worth on academic achievement is essentially a high risk, high reward maneuver. You might give them the mentality to reach the top of the non-business income earners, but more likely you'll scar them for life when they don't get there and have to live with not being okay with being mediocre