You’re not special

I had the hard luck of being a bright, interested, and participatory kid in a post-Obama educational system, which meant that I was told how special I was at every opportunity. Every teacher, family member, and extracurricular adviser got together to form a cult of me that only collapsed when I stopped performing as well as I should.<br><br>I went from being the underachieving kid they assumed was stupid because he didn’t speak much (I was disabled as a kid, and it took years for me to be able to communicate effectively) to a hyper-achieving kid they assumed was smarter than the rest, and with a flick of a switch. I realized around middle school that everyone thought I was clever, and if I just went through the motions I would be showered with praise, awards, and help.<br><br>I only found out around senior year that I’m not actually clever. I can only play at being clever, only because I was the luckiest kid in the world that I was thrown into an AP course in seventh grade and I had worked hard enough to win everyone’s affection and so they never stopped telling me how great I was.<br><br>It turns out that everyone else was told they were special too. What that means is that now I’m in college, I’m surrounded by people who were told they were special and tried hard to live up to that. I’m an English major, which means I’m surrounded by people who were gifted by teachers, classmates, and family with hundreds of dollars worth of the same author’s work when they were thirteen. My generation’s obsession with literary fiction is not because it’s mystifying and obiter dicta enough to keep us entertained, but because our parents were told by every authority that this was the highest level of culture available, and they wanted to raise cultured children. <br><br>I cheated my way into my first three years of college, and I just barely made it through my first upper-level course without failing, because I’m not actually clever. I’m bad at math, bad at computer science, and can’t read a map to save my life. And while I might try to tell you that I’m smart, that I’m lucky, or anything else to get you to like me, there’s no need to.<br><br>You don’t need to be clever to excel economically or socially. I’m not sure I’ve met a person who is actually clever. I don'[t think Clever People exist. What I do think exists are people who are told that they’re clever, and told often enough that they believe it, and those people excel. But you don’t need to be one of those people.<br><br>It’s good to be clever, I’ll admit that. I’m not doing well now that I’ve had to start working on my own. I have to spend the majority of my free time reading, a task I never had to do before. But if you’re not one of those people, you don’t need to be. If you’re not willing to do the work to be clever, don’t try to pretend you are. You don’t need to be clever. You don’t need to be special. You are not the main character of your own story. Nobody cares if you get a C because you can’t write an essay, you will not be rejected from college because you’re not gifted. Nobody at a party cares if you don’t know what Shakespearean Sonnets are, and the people who do care don’t matter.<br><br>I know I can’t get you to believe it. Nobody is ever really convinced that they aren’t the center of the world, and nobody believes they aren’t special. I’ve read books on the Dunning-Kruger effect, and I still think I’m special. I don’t think someone who’s never been in a cult can truly understand what the experience of being in a cult is like, and I believe everyone is in this cult.<br><br>But I’m telling you this because I think it’s important to understand. We need to stop pretending we are something we’re not. Not because we’re stupid and the world needs saving from us, but because understanding our place is the road to personal fulfillment.<br><br>So, if you’re one of those people who needs to be told how clever they are, don’t listen. They don’t actually believe it. It’s nice to be clever, but it’s not necessary. It’s okay if you’re not. But you do need to do the work.<br><br>Edit: Okay, so I’ve gotten a lot of comments here, positive and negative, and I don’t have time to respond to all of you. I love reading your stories, and I’m so glad this resonated with so many of you. But I need to correct something crucial.<br><br>I do not believe that everyone should be equally valued, respected, or regarded. I believe that everyone should start off with the assumption that they are equal, respected, and regarded, and then prove or disprove that. What I believe is that we can’t treat everyone like they’re special, but we can’t treat them like they’re nothing instead. And I know that this is a very rare belief, so I voice it because I think it’s important. <br><br>I do not believe everyone is equal, I do not believe everyone is of equal value. What I believe is that you don’t need to be special. You don’t need to stand out, be exceptionally hardworking, or transcend the human. And that’s a good thing, because you can’t change who you are. You might try, but most people don’t. If you’re not hardworking enough to be special, than you’re probably not going to be. But you don’t need to be. What you need to do is put in work. What you need to do is be honest. What you need to do is be yourself.<br><br>I said in the post that nobody really cares if you don’t know what Shakespearean sonnets are. I was lying, I do. I don’t care because I hate the education system, I don’t care because I think it’s overvalued. But I do care, because I’m an idiot who thinks that reading books is more valuable than doing anything else.<br><br>A lot of you have shared your stories with me, about being gifted or ungifted, and I’ve loved reading all of them. I’m so glad this piece connected with so many of you. And I know that as a member of this cult, I shouldn’t be allowed to speak about it. I’m interested in the material, I’m interested in the subject, I’m interested in you. I know I’m biased, and I’m sorry. But I just want to help. And I hope that I’ve helped you.