Post by Jaga on Jun 15, 2008 19:27:33 GMT -7
This is an interesting analysis. I agree with the author. I consider myself "smart" in his definition - that means that I spent my time to see what is going on around. But maybe he is right, we (probably the majority of our forum members) spend too much time worrying about things we have no influence.
He is also right that we try too high, therefore we may feel sometimes that we fail.
what do you think? The blog is not really long. Please, share your opinion with us
Please, read this interesting blog:
Why smart people fail
Before I continue, I better make some qualifications about that statement. When I say “smart,” I’m not referring to some precise class of people, but rather, a more general group: creative people with generally higher raw computing power. You know, smart people. What I mean by “fail” might be a little more tricky to pin down. I say this because a lot of people (smart people) might object to my diagnosis of their failures. In other words, smart people are more likely to consider “failure” to be an arbitrary thing, one that changes significantly between the different people we might ask about it. I’ve got good news, it is an arbitrary thing, and that’s precisely part of the problem. But what I mean by failure is not what smart people would consider failure but instead what the world at large would call it. I mean the smart person who gets bad grades. Or who gets stuck in a job or career that does not utilize their creativity or computing power. Or who sets his finances on fire. In other words, the world at large says that success means you have a good career, lots of money and you drive a nice car. Plain and simple. And that world doesn’t care whether you want those things or not. In fact, plenty of smart people don’t care about them in the least.
But, the people who have these things enjoy greater leisure in life, invite new challenges and see more opportunities than people who do not. And then what happens is this: smart people (who don’t care about having a nice career, or who are in the wrong career) sit by and watch as the dumber person with the better job gets to go travel to Europe, can afford the new laptop, and later gets to start his own business with the capital he piled up from all those years of making more money than the smart person. In short, the very things that smart people sometimes do not care about in the least can lead to lots of things they do.
Here are some reasons why smart people fail:
Their goals are lot bigger
Smart people think big. They have a greater chance to the see the big picture and they often form their goals around what they see. Besides that though, smart people have greater potential to accomplish bigger things and to make bigger impacts and so their goals and dreams reflect this. Having larger goals means a harder and longer trip and with them, a greater chance of failure. Sometimes it’s not that they are unsuccessful at what they set out to achieve, it’s that they set out to achieve so much more.
What makes them smart makes them ineffective competitors
The corporate ladder? Social status? Designer clothing? Lots of smart people could care less. Some of them care more about world poverty, global warming and political strife between nations on the other side of the globe. A lot of the time, when smart people fail, it’s because they never tried to succeed, at least at the things that might get them ahead financially or that might give them access to networked friends in the working world.
They falsely mistake most people as being more like them than they are
I’ve met lots of smart people who accidentally assume that all the other people they encounter will fully understand them or share the same viewpoints, think the same kinds of things. But that’s not often the case. The perspectives of the more mainstream people around them often vary significantly from theirs. More mainstream people are thinking ahead about the party next Friday, the drama going on at their girlfriend’s apartment or the next time they plan on going to the mall. For some smart people, they could care less about these things. In the meantime, they go through life always at odds with their surroundings.
more:
www.iwillnotdie.com/why-smart-people-fail/
He is also right that we try too high, therefore we may feel sometimes that we fail.
what do you think? The blog is not really long. Please, share your opinion with us
Please, read this interesting blog:
Why smart people fail
Before I continue, I better make some qualifications about that statement. When I say “smart,” I’m not referring to some precise class of people, but rather, a more general group: creative people with generally higher raw computing power. You know, smart people. What I mean by “fail” might be a little more tricky to pin down. I say this because a lot of people (smart people) might object to my diagnosis of their failures. In other words, smart people are more likely to consider “failure” to be an arbitrary thing, one that changes significantly between the different people we might ask about it. I’ve got good news, it is an arbitrary thing, and that’s precisely part of the problem. But what I mean by failure is not what smart people would consider failure but instead what the world at large would call it. I mean the smart person who gets bad grades. Or who gets stuck in a job or career that does not utilize their creativity or computing power. Or who sets his finances on fire. In other words, the world at large says that success means you have a good career, lots of money and you drive a nice car. Plain and simple. And that world doesn’t care whether you want those things or not. In fact, plenty of smart people don’t care about them in the least.
But, the people who have these things enjoy greater leisure in life, invite new challenges and see more opportunities than people who do not. And then what happens is this: smart people (who don’t care about having a nice career, or who are in the wrong career) sit by and watch as the dumber person with the better job gets to go travel to Europe, can afford the new laptop, and later gets to start his own business with the capital he piled up from all those years of making more money than the smart person. In short, the very things that smart people sometimes do not care about in the least can lead to lots of things they do.
Here are some reasons why smart people fail:
Their goals are lot bigger
Smart people think big. They have a greater chance to the see the big picture and they often form their goals around what they see. Besides that though, smart people have greater potential to accomplish bigger things and to make bigger impacts and so their goals and dreams reflect this. Having larger goals means a harder and longer trip and with them, a greater chance of failure. Sometimes it’s not that they are unsuccessful at what they set out to achieve, it’s that they set out to achieve so much more.
What makes them smart makes them ineffective competitors
The corporate ladder? Social status? Designer clothing? Lots of smart people could care less. Some of them care more about world poverty, global warming and political strife between nations on the other side of the globe. A lot of the time, when smart people fail, it’s because they never tried to succeed, at least at the things that might get them ahead financially or that might give them access to networked friends in the working world.
They falsely mistake most people as being more like them than they are
I’ve met lots of smart people who accidentally assume that all the other people they encounter will fully understand them or share the same viewpoints, think the same kinds of things. But that’s not often the case. The perspectives of the more mainstream people around them often vary significantly from theirs. More mainstream people are thinking ahead about the party next Friday, the drama going on at their girlfriend’s apartment or the next time they plan on going to the mall. For some smart people, they could care less about these things. In the meantime, they go through life always at odds with their surroundings.
more:
www.iwillnotdie.com/why-smart-people-fail/
