Can intelligence and potential be wasted and squandered?

Of course it can be. Sometimes people with exceptionally high IQ don’t possess the necessary social skills to actually be productive in an employment environment.

absolutely….what is more important…potential or happiness?

@perspicacious Especially not Aspies.

Personally, I could’ve done a lot better in life if I had had the social skills to “play the game” instead of focusing more on knowing how to do a job than how to get a job. Sure, I have a trade where one can earn a comfortable living if they can find work, but $50K/yr is a far cry from the $500K/yr some incompetent fuck-nugget can get with no skills other than shmoozing and playing people.

@jerv Those are very important skills these days. Intelligence will take you far, but so will charisma.

@jerv I find it irritating too; I’ve seen it more than I can tell you.

@jerv So…...........what you believe is some smooth talking likeable near nit wit (or the correct term butt nugget) can do more career or job wise than a super genius?

@Facade Fuck charisma in the ear!

Seriously though, some people have a medically certifiable reason to lack charisma, sometimes bad enough to actually qualify for total disability. See, charisma relies on empathy and communications, and those are two things that people with AS or HFA really have issues with, just as Stephen Hawking has issues playing basketball. It;s not just a lack of skill here.

@Hypocrisy_Central I believe what I have seen.

Each person has to judge their own life and decide whether it is ‘worthwhile’ or not. I don’t think any outside source can decide for us.

@YARNLADY I am happily married and earning enough to live on doing something I am good at and like to do. My paycheck says “Failure”, but I beg to differ.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

@ratboy , well said!

I know I wasted mine….but I’m living comfortably in my mothers basement

It happens all the time. From school age on [“underachiever!” say the school reports]. Some, like Edison, blossom later. Some never do, or only to a limited degree. Lack of will, lack of social skills, lack of a dream, all these can play a part. But people are what they are. Intelligence is only one of several skills that can bring one success. People of average intelligence with great social skills and great drive can be very successful.

@talljasperman that won’t last forever. You need a plan.

I see this frequently. Academic superstars with no social skills, no goals. I was one of them until I stumbled into a career that made use of my weird combination of skills. If not for pure luck, I’d have been like “Rain Man”.

All I know I watched a close friend who was the smartest kid in the school slowly smoke and drink his life a way. Never finished High-School, drank his 12 pack or case of beer every night…smoked what ever weed he could find and pass out. Not just on weekends, every night. After I went away to college never saw him but once or twice and last I heacrd he finally got a job moping floors and cleaning bed pans in a psyche ward. Still drinks his 12 pack every night. He was a billiant kid just didn’t care…took the easy way out.

BTW, I carry the same diagnosis as @jerv .

I am a genious and I have no money, no friends, no nothing. I major mental illnesses and no way of helping myself. I am homeless, full of anxiety. I have no way of getting help cos I can’t drive. I was born in N.Y.C. and am stuck in the armpit of Calf., Clearlake. I am miserable. Having a good mind can be squandered away. EASILY…

Yes, in some countries ruled by morons it does. When smart people don’t succeed leaving these countries…

@SVTSuzie Why do you think you are a genius when you can’t even spell it?

genius…being a genius…it doesn’t lead to anything…in all logic and if it depended on a genius there would be far less humans in this world…and for you anartist, one obvious thing…you criticized svtsuzie for her comment yet you understood her point so why complain? what was your point in criticizing? you wanted attention? you have mine if it makes you feel better :D

YES. Absolutely, it can be squandered, as I have proven first hand. I am lucky enough to possess a rather high iq, spent almost all of my life in school (screwing off perhaps too much of the time), ended up opting to drop away from my science based direction, and have been working mundane jobs (ie jobs which do not require any education & offer very little intellectual stimulation, monetary compensation, or respect) since leaving grad school.

Can I schluph oph and still have my work exceed those around me who actually try? Yes, and easily.

Does this mean that my intelligence is not squandered? No.

While someone is required to do my job, and preferably as well as I, the truth is that I am not required for my job, because my job does not even begin to tap into my intellectual capacity. While I generally feel that a more intelligent human race is better, someone like myself (and yes I do recognize that my tone may sound a bit arrogant) should be doing something that most people cannot, something to contribute to our world, our species, and shouldn’t be taking up jobs that are needed by people who weren’t lucky enough to be born with a high iq. Unless you are very well centered and all zen, working a mundane job while possessing a high iq will drive you insane and promote whatever unhappiness already exists within you, which is no good for you or those around you, especially when you get frustrated because while you may realize that you have no limitations, people are constantly assuming their limitations onto you.

In an overpopulated world, where people are struggling just to have work, and I’ve straight out wasted my potential for far too long, I know there’s a limited amount of time I can continue to work such jobs, and I constantly debate with myself about whether it’s worth going back to school to pursue something like medicine or physics, or how much longer it will take me to complete my personal tasks in life before I commit suicide, or even if these personal tasks matter all that much anymore after recognizing how much I have squandered my potential and if suicide should come earlier so I stop wasting all the resources that my life requires.

So, yes, the potential which comes with a high iq can easily be squandered, and squandering that potential is worse than many might think.

@perpessio While someone is required to do my job, and preferably as well as I, the truth is that I am not required for my job, because my job does not even begin to tap into my intellectual capacity. You know, I can actually se the logic in that though it may escape most others, a person with a IQ of 130 would not be wasting a lot of potential being a sandwich maker because he/she could do so much more; it would be like overkill. It would be like using a 3 ton dump truck to move 5 sacks of top soil. To have those who are smart do smart jobs and those who are not do only physical stuff seems a lot like Gattaca but as the Vulcans say “The needs of the many out weight the needs of the few”.

While I generally feel that a more intelligent human race is better, someone like myself (and yes I do recognize that my tone may sound a bit arrogant) should be doing something that most people cannot, something to contribute to our world, our species, and shouldn’t be taking up jobs that are needed by people who weren’t lucky enough to be born with a high iq. [sic] If there is a brilliant mind capable of solving many cancers it would almost be criminal that such a mind be wasted when it can help sop many. A last we have freedom of choice so one cannot be forced to work a job even for the better good of society. I am not so sure myself if genius is innate or something developed by early stimulation or a combo of the 2. I know certain people are born with conditions that limit how and what their brains can do but then again many have showed their brains may not work at the same capacity over all but can work incredibly well in narrow select areas.

I know there’s a limited amount of time I can continue to work such jobs, and I constantly debate with myself about whether it’s worth going back to school to pursue something like medicine or physics, or how much longer it will take me to complete my personal tasks in life before I commit suicide I see suicide as a non-starter to me, it won’t solve the problem because the problem lies with how you view the problem. You killing yourself won’t put an extra meal on the table for those who have none, or an exam for someone in need of one but can’t get it, or a cure for someone dying of an illness. Each day you wake on the up side of the daisies you have the choice to try to do today what you did not do yesterday. Maybe you have waited too late to complete some great opus but maybe if you entered physics, medicine, etc, you can take years of the next person who would finish what you started.