“You’re too smart for that.” “You should do something more than that.” “Why do you want to do that? You can do so much more.”
Are these questions that you hear from your friends and family? If they are, I know exactly how you feel.
Growing up, I always heard these questions from people. Nobody understood why my dreams weren’t leading me to the top paying jobs. Sometimes, your dreams do not match up with your potential. I never say I was “smart” because I wasn’t… I just learned differently from everybody else. I understood and absorbed information more quickly than other people my age, ever since I was little. It wasn’t my fault, it was just the way I was.
It wasn’t only in my studies that I was “too smart.” Sometimes, I was “too smart” to make some of the decisions I made. I was “too smart” to be lazy. I was “too smart” to mess around like a normal kid. For a long time, I let “too smart” define me. I let “too smart” become everything I was.
As I grew older, I realized how much I loved to learn. Even though I was made fun of for learning differently, it never stopped my love. I learned how much I loved history. When I reached high school and took chemistry, I found my two loves: Chemistry and History.
At age twelve, I had the goal of becoming a historian, people around me would laugh at me. They would say, “But you’re so smart. You could do something great.” Yeah, I could, but that’s not what I wanted to do. I had a passion for history. Of course, everything changed after I took chemistry courses. Now that I want to work in a science field, nobody says a word. Now that my goals include graduate school and working for the F.B.I., nobody says anything. Why? Just because I learn quicker than other people, does not mean that I want to use that information for the rest of my life...and just because I changed my mind does not mean that I did it because of you or for you. I changed my mind because my interests changed.
If anything, I was “too smart” to listen to them. If I had let the phrase “too smart” influence all of my goals and decisions in my life, I would not be where I am now. I would not have explored my options and discovered my true passion. History is still one of my favorite subjects, but it is not something I am passionate about, it is more of a hobby.
Listening to people say that you’re “too smart” to do something, is another way of them telling you that, in their opinion, you “can’t” do that. Why do people think they have any say in your life? Why do people think that their opinions will overrule your passions? People don’t realize that the world does not revolve around them. People don’t realize that passions are what drives us, not the influence of others.
