Having a high intelligence level shouldn't mean you owe anybody to 'make it big', regardless of what that means.
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2025
758 points (94.6% liked)
Humor
8810 readers
242 users here now
"Laugh-a-Palooza: Unleash Your Inner Chuckle!"
Rules
Read Full Rules Here!
Rule 1: Keep it light-hearted. This community is dedicated to humor and laughter, so let’s keep the tone light and positive.
Rule 2: Respectful Engagement. Keep it civil!
Rule 3: No spamming! AI slop will be considered spam at the discretion of moderators
Rule 4: No explicit or NSFW content.
Rule 5: Stay on topic. Keep your posts relevant to humor-related topics.
Rule 6: Moderators Discretion. The moderators retain the right to remove any content, ban users/bots if deemed necessary.
Please report any violation of rules!
Warning: Strict compliance with all the rules is imperative. Failure to read and adhere to them will not be tolerated. Violations may result in immediate removal of your content and a permanent ban from the community.
We retain the discretion to modify the rules as we deem necessary.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I wasn't told I was gifted, though I was told I was "Smart but undisciplined/lazy" by my dad all the time. Who seemed more angry that I was undisciplined than proud that I was smart.
Turns out I am just autistic. And while I'm smart about random but highly specific things I had (and arguably still have) no attention or patience for stuff outside my hyper fixations.
Also I interview terribly. Every job search has taken ages, but once I get a job I always end up making my bosses very happy with my performance.
I have a fairly middle of the road job for where I live miraculously but that's probably because the lady who hired me was very pregnant and on her way out to maternity leave and wanted to be done looking for a new admin assistant. I'm definitely underemployed though.
How about being above average intelligence, but get placed in below average classes because one child study team person decided you had "auditory" problems while you were in kindergarten? I recently found out that my highschool guidance counselors lied about my placement tests and I should have been in honors science instead of remedial.
Plot twist: You're gifted but don't get recognized so you just sit in gen-pop, acing tests after taking naps in class.. pissing off every teacher you encounter.
You then achieve penultimate success in all facets of life, personal and professional.
You start over for the challenge and end up even more successful.
Then you get diagnosed with cancer.
Or something. Totally not my story, nope.
Don't overlook the journey looking for the destination, folks. You're only robbing yourself of the one universal asset: Time.
Damn, sorry dude.
My gifted program (late 90s) literally consisted of:
- playing Oregon Trail
- playing Carmen Sandiego
- making a puzzle
- making and presenting an invention ~
- drawing pretty designs with a compass without knowing the actual math behind it ~
- making a didgeridoo and a rain stick
~ these classes were literally in a closet which was a part time “gifted” room.
What I wished they’d taught:
- how to study
- how to manage your time
- how and why to set goals for yourself
- how to start new habits
- how to be persistent
I went to 15+ schools before I graduated highschool, and depending on where I was I was either put into "gifted and talented", the "extended learning program", "fast path", or "Accelerated Track". Every place had a different philosophy of how to deal with kids who already knew how to read and do math.
Sometimes I would end up in a class with a bunch of quiet bookworms who wore church clothes every day and other times I would be surrounded by rambunctious and highly enthusiastic nerds.
Usually we would play computer games or play games designed to make us engage socially, but sometimes we would actually study interesting stuff in a deep way.
Every one of these programs seems to be a totally improvised and locally unique program. Nothing from the words they used for things to the books, brands, or activities seemed to have any consistency. Since I usually moved in the middle of the school year I would often see multiple versions of each grade's program.
It made me really glad I didn't grow up in a small town. Those people are getting screwed.
This is exactly it. So much of it was improvised. And that's largely by design when you account for how most American schools are funded: unevenly through local levies.
Dang, THAT was the entirety of your school's genius program? I assume your school was not in an affluent area.
mine was the same.
my school was in the bottom quartile of systems in my state. a quarter of the students were in poverty.
we also only had like 2 computers so we all had to play on them together and work in teams.
...yeah jocks getting life-changing injuries in their school years is actually pretty comparable to "gifted kids" getting traumatized by this shithole version of America
not funny ha-ha so much as what the fuck is wrong with americans, why are they like this to their kids
Reminds me of the bunnies and tortoise dance - the story behind it is that there's fast learners, and then slower learners that have to work extra hard to keep up, more than the fast learners, but in the end they all burn out except the one last kid left alone. Sad af, cool dance, cool idea.
Not exclusive to the US. I’m Canadian and I found high school awful and traumatizing.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Meh...
I was successful in science/engineering for about 25 years before I burned out. I did make it, I'm just tired.
I'm in this picture and I don't like it. 23 years school then 7 years running a research lab and writing a couple NSF proposals that got accepted. I was happy to cash out, drop clearance, and take an industry job for WTF 2X the money after one year?! No regrets, even if my dissertation is now buried forever. I'm a sellout and I'm totally cool with it. I can do cool shit with my kids now.
I never burned out. I developed hobbies and found I enjoyed more physical work.
yep. having a life outside of your work and having an identity outside of it is huge.
sadly i meet so few people who have this.
THANK YOU. You were over-praised by well intentioned but misguided educators.
They gave us participation awards for things they invented around us.
I swear, it was all to placate Boomer parents.
Yeah, my "gift" was undiagnosed ADHD which has made life absolutely miserable to navigate once I left the extremely structured environment of school.
"I was good at math until they added letters"
"I used to get straight A's"
"I was gifted untill they realised I was neuro divergent"
Bro you're dumb now. Why should anyone care that you were above average as a literal child.
There is something to consider though if we are not helping people realize their full potential.
And I doubt that anyone truly gifted as a child is dumb now. Innate intelligence doesn't just whiff away.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
Is it really about explaining why they're not more successful? Personally being "burnt out" was more of a realization that I don't even want that kind of success, I just want to get as far away from the way my life was in highschool as possible.
Fuckin' PREACH
In my case the "gift" was undiagnosed neurodivergence and that seems to be the case for a lot of people.
Yep! Only I was in the "could be good if she applied herself" group
Ah, fellow late diagnosed ADHDer
load more comments
(1 replies)
"Gifted" programs are so fucked up.
They separate kids out for being "smart", put them on a pedestal, endlessly gas them up with wildly unrealistic expectations and then only teach them how to be good students at the expense of all social development.
All these kids go into the world thinking that being good at math or memorization is 95% of what it takes to be successful when in reality it's like 10% intellect and 90% social ability.
The worst part is that these kids usually aren't even extra smart, they just have more involved parents.
It always ends up that the kid with infinite potential lives up to none of it and has a massive ego complex because they got gaslit into believing their parents pipedreams were realistic and that it's their fault for not living up to them.
Edit: It's really funny all the former gifted kids are taking this as a personal attack.
This is such a horrible take. Gifted programs offer accelerated offerings for children who are so goddamn bored in normal level classes. They allow people who to get ahead, give additional opportunity for faster advancement, and really don't even separate kids that much.
Literally everyone is bored in normal level classes. Most of us just express it by getting bad grades so we're excluded from the gifted stuff.
load more comments
(14 replies)
1000x this.
I'm not going to mess up my kid the same way I got messed up.
I'm going to find a new and novel approach that will despite my best intentions mess him up in new and novel ways
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(48 replies)
I was gifted enough to eventually figure out I was a dumb ass.
"I could've done physics" is the billionaire equivalent of "could have gone pro."
What do you mean I can't get by with the bare minimum effort anymore? That's all I really learned! That was my real gift!
The only people calling everyone out for this were Always going to be failures.
Its nice to have a narrative for yourself.
Either you are called lazy for being chill despite knowing how much potential you could show to please yourself and others, or you could be pushing yourself to burnout and despair to please yourself and others.
Oh I made it, I make more than a lot of my peers in highschool, not all of them, but I make a good wage. But I fucking hate the dev industry man. I was unemployed for 3 months and I got so much done. Agile methodology sucks the soul out of me, I don't have anything left for my personal projects. It's micromanagement incarnate. Oh you had two bad dev cycles in a row? Guess it's time for a PIP. Oh you had to step away for an errand a few times this dev cycle? Let's not make it a habit, even though all your work is done. Oh you have mutiple 2 hour meetings to attend and we still label you as having full capacity meaning you have to figure out how to do 8 days of dev work in almost half that time. I'm so fucking tired of it.
It's also full of boot lickers. Had people on my team that were like "oh I'll just work this weekend to make the deadline" and I'm like why. They made the deadline even though we told them it was too aggressive. You don't get paid more for hitting it or for putting more hours in. Stop enabling them and devaluing labor.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
After 40 years and 3 months of testing I finally discovered everything wrong with me is because I have ADHD.
So yeah, if it wasn't from my injured mind I could have been someone lol
load more comments
(3 replies)
Yep, burnout and depression can hit everyone and anyone.
view more: next ›