When I was a kid, I was proclaimed the smartest thing on the planet by my parents and every teacher I ever met. I was constantly told that I was smarter than either of my siblings (and they both graduated with almost perfect grades), and that I was going somewhere great. That is a lot of pressure to put on a kid. I certainly didn’t appreciate it, and I didn’t deal with it very well. The main problem was that being a smart kid usually means getting beaten up and generally picked on almost every day of your life. When you add smart to the already lethal combination of being short with red hair, you are guaranteed to be destroyed.
I was in the Talented and Gifted program, of TAG for short. There were about half a dozen kids from the school who were deemed worthy and we got to get out of class once a week and sit around with some other teacher who ran the program and challenged us to bigger and better things.
How did I cope with it? Not very well, actually. I didn’t really enjoy being forced to sit in the back of the classroom reading silently while the other kids learned a task that I mastered several months before them. I saw who the cool kids were, and what it took to be one of them. I realized that being smart was not the way to go.
So how do you not be smart, when you already are? You slowly, gradually dumb yourself down to the level of other kids. As you are trying to master being average, you also hone your wit to a cutting edge. You master sarcasm (because no one understands your jokes anyway), and use it as a weapon. Before you know it you are the class clown, and no one really knows why they are laughing at you when they can’t understand your jokes. But you dumb down the jokes enough and people really start laughing. The same people that were beating you up a year before are now laughing at the things you do and say. What a relief! Then you quit the TAG program because it really cramps your style.
It took many years to dumb myself down to the level of people around me, but it worked. I graduated high school with a meager 3.0 average. I didn’t go on to college right away, but worked in dead-end physical labor jobs. Eventually, I went on to college to get a degree in Forestry, not exactly what my parents and teachers thought I would be doing with my life. After all, I was the smartest and most talented child they had ever seen. The only problem was, they hadn’t done the right things to encourage greatness. They pressured for results, instead of encouraging growth and exploration. I felt trapped in a world I didn’t understand, and even worse, I was alone there. Maybe the right kind of environment would have helped propel me to greatness. Maybe I wouldn’t have almost flunked 8th grade because I didn’t care anymore. Maybe I would have aspired to bigger and better things.
But I didn’t. I chose the path of least resistance. I went the way of the clown, the one who everyone wants to be around. I wanted to be accepted way more than I ever wanted to be respected. Friends were more important than grades and accolades.
You want to know something else? I am probably better off because of my choices. My life is great. The only real stress in ly life comes from having 3 (yes, 3) daughters. The stress I feel there is mostly my own fault, because I let the little things bother me, and I am working on letting it go. I just want to enjoy them, not yell at them for making a mess.
So here’s to all the smart kids out there. If you’re lucky, you will figure out that friends and family are way more important than getting straight A’s on your report card. Try to enjoy the little things in life, not fret over them.
