AIBU to ask what you really wish people understood?

[SisyphusHadItEasy]

I have 2 things...

1. sometimes highly achieving students are only that because of a freak of genetics... I am (this is not a stealth boast) highly intelligent. I was born that way, just as someone can be born with the genes for ginger hair or be exceptionally flexible, the genetic weirdness in me is a stupid memory and ability to perform in an academic setting.

As a result, academics come very easily to me. I don't have to revise much (if at all) to ace an exam, can write a paper at the last minute that will be one of the best in the class.

I hate this. I know many students who work so much harder than me to achieve adequate results (or less). I feel guilty when I see them working so hard. I know that, because they have worked so hard, they are actually learning far more than I ever will.

I wish that everyone knew that academic success isn't always the result of hard work - or that failure was not the result of lack of effort.

and, 2) I wish all AIBU posters knew you can turn off the vote function with one click.

What do you wish everyone understood?

Why? If you don't need to work so hard to get good academic results, that's great: you can focus your energy elsewhere.

I am the same as the OP in that regard, and it does have some side effects:

• Because I could essentially take any career path I chose, nobody bothered to push me to think about it. They reassured me that I could do anything I wanted and didn't really need to choose my degree carefully even. But although academically successful, a little support in careers would have gone a long way for me.

• Sometimes your teachers aren't particularly fond of kids who have it too easy. Combine that with a douche of a teacher and they can make your life hell.

• The obvious social impact of being a swot.

• Jobs can require you to work hard even if understanding the work required is no effort. The practice is handy.

I wish people would stop saying "Just get a sitter!" as if getting babysitters is easy peasy. Its usually said by people who have multiple, trusted family members to help them out at the drop of a hat. We have no family around us at all. Literally noone. The only way we'd get a sitter is by contacting an agency which would mean using someone who was essentially a stranger to us. I dont feel comfortable with that. If I had family i'd let them babysit but we have none and I wish people would appreciate that its not that easy for everyone. Its not that we're being overprotective or OTT, I'm quite sure people wouldnt just hand their wallets and credit cards over to just anyone and yet they expect parents to do that with their kids- with people they've never even met before!

Because I could essentially take any career path I chose, nobody bothered to push me to think about it. They reassured me that I could do anything I wanted and didn't really need to choose my degree carefully even. But although academically successful, a little support in careers would have gone a long way for me.

• Sometimes your teachers aren't particularly fond of kids who have it too easy. Combine that with a douche of a teacher and they can make your life hell.

• The obvious social impact of being a swot.

While I completely get all this, the OP isn't a school child, she's a 40something mother of three returning to university, far beyond the problems of being perceived as a swot and having teachers who don't like her.

OP please ignore all the daft "stealth boast" posts.

I think it would help us all a lot of more people were like you - self aware enough to realise that their experience doesn't automatically apply to everyone.
A lot of people seem happy to brag about working hard and achieving or even working hard and getting paid very poorly (as if that's a good thing).
The fact is there are no simple answers to anything so saying "I did x why can't everyone?" is a ridiculous over simplification.

That it doesn't matter how gifted/intelligent that you are, if you haven't got self esteem/worth, you won't use it.

That a lot of the marriages described on her, or rather the behaviour of the men they are choosing to live with, are going to erode the self esteem/worth of their children.
Which makes the whole thing rather pointless.

How hard people with even mild learning disabilities/Autism/ASD work to 'just' work in minimum wage jobs and how this puts them in poverty, because of the impact on the choices that they have. Which is why we give top up benefits. I hate the memes about working in McDonald's/Pizza places etc.

That yes, mum died over a year; yes she was hard work and difficult and not the best mother in the world; yes I should forgive my bitch sister for going NC and never visiting her and letting me do everything during mums dying and funeral, because I am 'only hurting myself'; but I am still grieving and feeling angry so much, I have no idea how I am getting through each day.
I wish I had one word to explain all that.

'being a Swot'. Thats it though isn't it, people think I am a 'swot' also .
Its just as derogatory as people saying someone is ' thick' .. except with swot people seem to think its also linked to somesort of self- perceived superiority..
I was actually bullied out of a job by a manager who thought this about me.

That no one chooses their personality. The person you are is determined by your genetics and your experiences

This isn't a fact though, it's a theory. It's not that I don't understand that, it's that I don't believe it.

That actions and outcomes are not always as closely linked as the “successful “ would like us to believe.

That poor mental health is not a choice and, while there are things people can do to help themselves, they can’t just “snap out of it”.

That no one chooses their personality. The person you are is determined by your genetics and your experiences

This isn't true. People with Personality disorders can change using DBT and ive run CBT classes for people in a psych ward and you can absolutely change the way you think and behave. Yes, of course we all have core personality traits but they can absolutely be changed. The brain has neuroplasticity and the more you engage in certain thought patterns, your brain's chemistry actually changes- it moulds itself to the thoughts which is why negative thinking is so hard to break out of. So, whilst you might be genetically determined to be vulnerable to anxiety for example, its absolutely not true that you cant change that. You can.

I know exactly what you mean op.

Life quite often is the luck of the draw.

I am a bit puzzled by the claim that academically people either have it or they don't. This is not true. I know a lot of academics, and without exception, they all work very very hard. Long hours, obsessively, and so on. There is the odd one that does a regular week but in the main they tend to be the very hard-working ones.

I have a very academic dd, outstandingly so, but she also works harder than a lot of other people. So did I.

Yes, there are people who can coast along to a certain extent relying on memory, but depending on a subject, depending on the institution, this is only half the story by the time you get to undergrad- you still have to do the essays or assignments, on time. That can't occur through innate ability! By the time you are postgrad or PhD, you have to do some work! You can't just flunk your way through with no revision or engagement.

@Lepetitpiggy I'm so sorry I wish I had any words that would ease that just a little for you

That actions and outcomes are not always as closely linked as the “successful “ would like us to believe.

This actually worked in my favour recently. Our company needed a new contract win quite badly, and I successfully bid for a major new project that improves our situation significantly in the short and long term.

I am aware that we were just as likely to be the best fit for doing the work and lose the contract as we were likely to be the worst fit for carrying out the work, but by the quirk of the process to win the contract anyway.

I'm riding the kudos of staff being impressed, though!

I wish people would stop praising elderly people for not getting dementia. I hate when people say “oh, he’s 95, and he’s still as sharp as a tack” like it’s down to personal achievement and not good luck and genetics. Saying stuff like this also implies that dementia is a result of bad choices and down to personal responsibility.

I am a bit puzzled by the claim that academically people either have it or they don't. This is not true. I know a lot of academics, and without exception, they all work very very hard.

I think that a significant minority of people on Mn don't understand the difference between 'academic' in its noun and adjectival form. People often show up on the 'Academics' Corner' subforum which is intended for people who are academics (who do research and/or teaching at HE institutions, or who are studying to do do) with questions about school work.

I do agree, though. Not all academics are particularly clever, and doggedness, a well- or luckily-chosen research topic, professional well-connectedness, luck, and having one really successful funding bid -- these will all work in your favour.

@Nearlyalmost50

OP isn't claiming that that's the case for everyone, but it is the case for some people. There are different contributory skills to academic success, sure.

I happen to have an incredibly retentive memory, a knack for exam technique, a very logical and systems-focused brain, and a huge amount of cultural capital in my personal background.

Put those things together and yes, I was active during revision, but it wasn't work. I ended up doing the exam equivalent of trick shots in my A Levels, quoting bands I liked in English exams, making jokes as part of theoretical arguments, tutoring my friends and inventing revision techniques.

Not the same at all as someone who doesn't know the material beforehand therefore has to learn it before they can think about it, who has to make an effort to remember it, and have to learn exam techniques because though they know the subject well, they don't test well.

While I completely get all this, the OP isn't a school child, she's a 40something mother of three returning to university, far beyond the problems of being perceived as a swot and having teachers who don't like her.

It's very hard to say this without sounding like a twat, but I still do get treated like a swot to a certain extent. I like to talk about philosophy, politics, literary analysis, psychology, history, biology... Even as an adult, you can be on the receiving end of judgement or derision if your main interests aren't all that mainstream.

Saying stuff like this also implies that dementia is a result of bad choices and down to personal responsibility

Totally agree. Dementia can affect anyone, it doesnt mean that person wasnt intelligent or didnt live healthily. You'd never brag "he's 99 and has never had cancer!" so why is it different for dementia?

It's very hard to say this without sounding like a twat, but I still do get treated like a swot to a certain extent. I like to talk about philosophy, politics, literary analysis, psychology, history, biology... Even as an adult, you can be on the receiving end of judgement or derision if your main interests aren't all that mainstream.

I don't think you sound like a twat, but I think those are pretty mainstream -- surely it's a matter of surrounding yourself with people who are up for a similar level of conversation? Unfortunately, assuming you're in the UK (which I've just left after many years), there is admittedly a deeply-entrenched suspicion of anything considered remotely 'intellectual'.

Mingvase yes me also, although I am lucky that DH does also.. ( he is also considered a bit of a swot by his family) . Neither of us claim to have anything above average intelligence. .Mine thought I was just weird and 'always shutting herself away with a book' and in danger of becoming 'a Bluestocking'..
Both Dh and I were the first to go to university in our families, and they still think its a bit weird

I could have written the OP. I constantly feel like I have to apologise for being academically gifted and imposter syndrome is a major problem for me at the minute.

I am doing a degree and there are some students who constantly want to know what marks everyone gets, and I hate it because the group will have a whole conversation about how hard a test was and others will share their marks, and then I am asked and I just don't say now because my mark is almost always a lot higher for less effort. It is a real contradiction because it does feel boasty to say that, and what a problem to have!! But I have always found my academic ability embarrassing. I was ridiculed a lot as a child for it by my parents, so maybe it stems from that.

Now I just don't share my successes, which is objectively quite sad I suppose.

As for the concept of the thread, I wish many women understood their own power instead of blindly deferring to men. The amount of threads I read on here where a woman has given years to a selfish arse of a man, making herself small, giving away all her hopes and dreams and desires in the hope that he will throw her a few scraps....it genuinely gets me angry that so many girls grow up into these women who believe that is all they are capable of.

But people do get odd even about which university. I have a friend who went to a 'good' university and got a third, which she claims is of course better than my 2.1 because I only went to a former poly... Ah well..

@MingVase

Well, that's just it, isn't it - the baseline assumption from me is that I'll be considered a twat for doing so.

I'm particularly annoyed by the literary analysis one, and dramatic/narrative analysis, because I do it with very mainstream media. It doesn't need to be highbrow or highfalutin (my diatribe on The Cursed Child is epic).

But if I say something like 'I don't like what they've done with the character' or 'I love how they built the narrative of x' or 'it's amazing how they're creating conflicting desires in the audience'... I get zilch.

Sorry that last post sounded twatty , I am comparing intelligence to final marks.. What I meant was that its all about people s own perception of difference.. and internal defence mechanisms

Not comparing FFs!!!