Then again, you can be gifted in just about anything. It could be sports, it could be smarts, it could even be video games for all I care.

So, I absolutely love this thread. It's nice to stuff my feelings onto someone.

I must say sorry. I was being a bit grumpy with giftedness. I. Was. Absouletly JEALOUS. And to be honest, I shouldn't be. My math is my good, and I do high school alegbra. 0_0 so, I have nothing to complain about.

I'm good at reading, math, writing. But my standerds are... Well... HIGH. I want kids to say, "Oh, you are soooo smart" or at least "Nice work!". But no, I get Bs in science and I have to go through a lecture with my dad on why I should be better.

And I should, because I. Don't. Study. I never studied for history, science, any sort of that. I hated history and science. Hated it.

And nooowwww I'm gonna go rant on how hard my life is, blah blah blah, you should feel sorry for me, blah blah blah, etc.

What should I do? Is there any, ANY way I can improve my grades, and how can I study? How can I convince myself to study? I don't understand... I just want to be smart, gifted, liked.

Rant, rant, rant, on and on and on. It doesn't get any better. At least I'm honest with myself :(.

Does anyone else feel this way? Come on, there must be someone.

(And I gotta say, you guys fall asleep? My teachers would kill me if that happened...)

I'm stopping now. I'm already getting tears in my eyes. 

Who was the creator of this post?

I feel like a lot of this thread is turning into people being jealous of other people. Who cares if some of us are gifted and some of us aren't? We're all smart, it's just that some of us are smarter than others. (No offense to anyone who's gifted) 

Gonna add in my two cents when I should be studying for my physics final.

So. Giftedness.

First, some notes: I don't feel like going into details, but first through c. sixth/seventh grade me was definitely counted among the gifted number. Separate classes, ninety-ninth percentile scores, yada yada yada. I was young, vocal, and believed that I, along with the other advanced kids, were the pinnacle of intelligence of all the second graders in America and anyone who thought they were on the same level as us was probably wrong. 

The last four years of school have resulted in my gradual disilusionment with myself, school, and with the manner in which we relate ability to success. It's been a complicated, trying, and stressful process, full of experiences I hope never to repeat but probably will, because learning is a learning process. Here's what I've figured out: We, as a society, place a very high value on traditional academic subjects, especially those that relate to STEM for fields. I suppose there is reason for this: these are the things that enable humanity to survive, adapt, and thrive. We also place a high value on results and not effort, which is once again logical, but can have adverse effects later. I am interested in most of the classes I take, but what I actually learn in the these classes has such a low priority compared to what my grade is. Objectively, I know that the knowledge I obtain has a much greater value to me than my grade, but I am still unable to move past what was ingrained in me when I was younger: results. I was praised for results, and on the rare occasion I was praised for effort, I took it to mean results anyway because I put little effort into anything at school and excelled. This valuing of results had the additional effect of chaining my sense of self-worth with how other people perceived my intelligence and boy, has that been a mess to untangle. That's something that I'll always be dealing with, I think. My moments of greatest satisfaction almost always involve doing better than others on something academic, and I'm still trying to unlearn that. 

The culture of comparison was definitely perpetuated by me and other students like me. I wrote a poem about this (in part) in March, a couple weeks after I had a half-breakdown (that was mostly caused by something else but school stress was definitely a contributing factor) which I'll include in a separate post because I have to edit it for language. 

Other stuff: Even today, I have difficulty adjusting to situations wherein there are no concrete measures of success. I don't know how to study, and I have difficulty doing it even when I know I have to. 

And Re: best answer: this is reflective of almost all standarized tests (actually pretty much all tests because all the tests I take are preparing me for standarized tests) and, I believe, is also reflective of most of life. There are often several "correct" solutions to a problem, but among those correct answers is one that fits better than the others. 

(This post turned into a rambling commentary on my stress issues. I'm sorry.) 

tldr; My ability to learn/function/do things at a higher rate than others resulted in praise which resulted in a mess of a person.

(other note: I definitely don't mean to call out people specifically, but could we please refrain from boasting about accomplishments and talking about things in a way that seems to be designed to make others feel inferior (or make it clear to everybody else how smart we are)? I know this can be difficult to stop and not always intentional, but it's a trend I've noticed on this thread, and I'd like it to stop, please. I'm almost definitely guilty of it as well in this post and the poem I plan to post, but please do your best to stop doing it. This may be a conversation that isn't good for the CB simply because of the subject matter.)