The upsides to high intelligence

I recently saw an article about the unexpected downsides to high intelligence, and it occurs to me that maybe the upsides don’t get enough attention, so here is a list of good things about being a smartypants.

1. We have interesting things to talk about.
2. We are able to figure out the solutions to problems quickly and easily.
3. We are seldom bored because of the universe that exists in our minds
4. People can understand what we’re saying because we write and speak (more or less) correctly.
5. We often succeed at what we’re trying to do because we know how to do things.  As a result, we are less frustrated.
6. We do better in school with less effort.
7. More people respect us.
8. Many of us are hilarious.
9. The art we create is more profound and meaningful.
10. It takes us fewer words to convey more ideas.
11. We have more ideas to convey.

I can add to this list if anyone gives me any more good ones that aren’t repeats of what I already listed.  An intelligent person would have a less hard time thinking of them. :p

 

Putting on a show

I’m hilarious. I discovered it early in life, and it has gotten me through many social situations. People like to laugh, and when you make someone laugh, they like you more. Sometimes I feel a lot of pressure to be funny, and when I’m by myself again, I’m left feeling exhausted and sometimes a bit depressed. It seems to be automatic. I can’t turn it off, it’s just my natural reaction when I want the people around me to like me.

This has made working very difficult for me.  I’m always either working with customers or coworkers, and in both situations there is pressure to ensure that the people around me like me.  If I have to work a long day, that’s a lot of energy that goes into being charming and witty.  It leaves me with nothing for my personal life but a desire to escape from reality into video games or books.

I think maybe I don’t give myself enough credit for being smart.  I think I would find that a lot easier to lean on in the long run, and funny is a biproduct of smart anyway.

On the etiquette of “!”

I’ve been rehashing in my brain an issue from work from a few years back that still angers and annoys me. Because of it, I now no longer use the “!” or down arrow (not important) function on MS Outlook for work-related e-mail. This never used to be a problem at my corporate employer for nearly 10 years, but it did become an issue with my tyrant boss (now gone) who got onto me for using it “improperly”. What was worse is that my local advocate from the ARC of Fort Bend *agreed* with my boss, that I was mis-using this tool and not following proper business etiquette. I always thought that the “!” was something I could use to indicated “yo, don’t blow off this email, it’s actually pretty important for you to look at this soon.”; admittedly it was something important *to me*, at any rate. I was told, NO, the “!” means “DROP EVERYTHING AND READ THIS NOW!!” and that if my message didn’t reach that level of urgency I should refrain from using the “!”; I disagreed and argued for my own interpretation, but even my advocate figuratively shouted me down on this and I had to just accept it and stop using the “!”. But I also get the feeling my emails are now more easily ignored. One of my emails recently the respondent said “oh, sorry, it got lost in the shuffle”, and it was a time sensitive matter. In the corporate environment I would’ve used the “!”, but I’ve been cowed into not using it and still refrain from it even though I have a more understanding boss these days. It still aggravates and irritates me to think about, that the proper use of “!” depends on correctly gauging if the recipient is going to agree with you regarding just how important/urgent your message is TO THEM and that *I* am somehow wrong if it does not, that MY view of how important a message may be is somehow irrelevant. It just seems like a backhanded way to marginalize and ignore me sometimes.

It’s as if my Asperger’s diagnosis means my opinion of what’s important in email correspondence can be disregarded because my judgement of such matters is somehow automatically fatally flawed….

Recap of a conversation with my mom

I was going to do just a straight written post describing this conversation in detail but then decided to make a video instead. I may yet do a post, but this is what I came up with on the fly.