CCC88'

This thread is driving me to drink. I am so intelligent, I need exogenous chemicals to gain a superficial sense of pleasure because gosh darnit, I just know too much about the world to do so sober. I should form a club for fellow sufferers of this ailment.

vibragreen

To the poster above me, I am just going to hope that was sarcasm. I would suspect it is, but after browsing these boards for a while, I just don't know anymore.

Intelligent and gifted people are often less happy because they believe that being intelligent and gifted is the only thing that matters in life.

fizix2

^ yes, i agree with that

same goes for pretty people, or really, anyone lopsided in one area

Pyroclasm

nonsense

s

vibragreen

Thank you for contributing in such a meaningful way.

skinnyman

In my personal opinion, smarter/gifted people are less happy with the world. Smarter people are thinkers, conceptualizers, problem solvers. This means that they think more about the environment around them and about life in general. The increased awareness of the world means that they can see all of the problems the world contains. They feel helpless to solve them, leading them to become less satisfied with life.
Furthermore, our country does not support the growth of intellectuals. Now, people may say that isnt true. The smart people do, after all, get the high-paying jobs and are the ones to change the world. But think about schools. How often is a smart kid tha popular kid? Very rarely. The smart kids are the outcasts, rejected for being different. Meanwhile, the athletes and the pretty people are the center of attention, the ones with a lot of friends. This isolation of the smart kids means that the smart ones feel lonely and unimportant, which means that they will not be able to reach their full potential. If they are supported and nurtured, they could become so much more, but nowadays, they just feel, dare I say it, invisible.
And this problem dos not end after school. Think about it. Who are the icons of society? The heroes? The people all the kids want to grow up to be? The athletes, the actors and actresses, and the beautiful people; basically, the popular kids from school. Our society worships these people and forgets about the intelligent ones. This lack of recognition means that smart people realize that there is no point to trying. They will never be remembered or acknowledged by society. So they dont challenge themselves, leading to them having boring lives, leading to them being less happy. I am not saying that this applies to every smart person in the world, but in my experience, this has been the case.

schiesser

skinnyman, for your sake, I really hope you are being sarcastic. If not, get out from under that rock.

leafblade1354

Skinnyman has got a point, in that we really place more emphasis on athletics, beauty pageants, etc., but sometimes you have to be smart enough to figure out what really matters. If you think all that matters is happiness, you're halfway there.

joshcasto

I'm pretty damn happy.

vicelark

If these people are happy on what their doing then they are.

For a Painter, loves to paint

Happiness should not be interpreted as all around party-ing or smiling all the way.

I think their just plain quite~ Not to showy to people

zhvxoxqew

You mean the normal type of happy, or the fat, dumb, and happy kind?

MD Mom

Many of Skinnyman's points are proven in research of gifted people. It is a tough life for gifted young people. They are overwhelmingly introverts (about 70 percent) and often suffer because they have no peers. Additionally, if they are not in a school that values their differences, it can be pretty bad. For example, profoundly gifted students may be overexcitable--they over-react to disappointments and may cry or exhibit some other behavior that is misread by those watching. Teachers and counselors who are not trained to work with gifted kids don't know what to do and often do the wrong thing. Being smarter than everyone else has some disadvantages that most of us (myself included) just don't understand. There are some great books out on the subject of giftedness.

StellaNova

I believe that "smartness" (as measured by GPA) could actually be caused by unhappiness, not the other way around. A student could work harder to avoid making waves in his/her dysfunctional family, or an insecure child could use grades to compensate for social or emotional weaknesses. I'm not saying all intelligence comes from an unhappy childhood, but it's more prevalent than most people realize.

joshcasto

If people have a bad childhood, they usually don't excel academically. MOST top students are from stable households.

StellaNova

^Okay, maybe people who grew up in unstable families don't often become stellar students. But that doesn't mean those who do had happy childhoods. Do you really believe that it's just a coincidence that intelligence so often corresponds with introversion and social awkwardness? I don't believe that it's because kids are teased for having higher grades, or that gifted children are arrogant enough to believe that they're "too smart" to relate to their peers. I'm not saying unhappiness ALWAYS leads to higher grades, or that ALL smart people had this sort of background, but it does happen.