I have always been a bit unsure of my intellect, especially compared to others. There certainly have been the more common ”losing the keys” kind of bad memory whoopsies and perhaps, the more serious walking to a wrong way when the things in the mind are more interesting than the path to the destination. But what I mean is that, I have never seen myself as an inventor of something new or going in-depth on some issue.
Certainly the bad feedback of my words and actions tend to stick to the mind rather than the compliments. This is true in my case; as I can still remember comments like “You and your high school level of thinking.” It really bothered me (and to a certain effect, still does). It’s comments like the one mentioned above that keep that little guy in the subconscious alive and ready to make comments like “Hah, I told you!”
Even to this day, with high degrees from the polytechnic and university, steady job and a loving marriage; the mind sometimes goes to the place where you second guess (or even completely put down) yourself. This is why I imagine that some people have it much easier; it seems like, for example, a pro baseball player or military personnel are so concentrated on their “thing” that they don’t have any regrets nor second guesses – the main point being that, in my mind, they seem very committed and placing all of their bets on the one thing, but that also makes life easier/simpler and seemingly clear in priorities.
Is it then the reason is having too many options or the incapability to make choices, maybe attention span problems or commitment issues to a single thing? Most likely a compilation of all those mentioned and some more. And yet, the passion for a single thing is very attractive! In my mind, it’s because us humans like to organize things into boxes, and if we can say that “Tim is a car guy.” we automatically have an impression of what Tim is like.
Haven’t gone to any final conclusion on this issue and it still baffles me. Is there something wrong with the way I’m thinking or do others think like this too? Should people have “their thing” or is it the other way around, that most of us don’t have “a thing” – that instead, we rather try all sorts of things (that are possible and/or available to us) and kind of just flow through life picking on parts of the things that we enjoy the most, but never “settling” or “just” staying on one thing/issue/hobby.
The only thing I know is that we are not the best judges to evaluate our own lives. We might see Tim and think how great he is with cars and totally/partly close our eyes about the difficulties in Tim\’s life and what Tim has had to drop to pursue the car guy “thing”. The best judge is someone who doesn’t have their own issue with the decision: for example,a therapist or possibly someone whose opinion the person trusts.
Validation.
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