One of the soul limber prompts in The Desire Map is, "What's different about me is that". My first thought, the thing I wrote down immediately, was, "I'm smart," and then I had this whole "UGH" feeling about it, and I wrote, "BUT THAT'S NOT ALL I AM OR WANT TO BE."
I was always the smart kid growing up. I got good grades and had the highest SAT scores in my graduating class. Teachers didn't always know what to do with me. I spent a lot of time withdrawing and reading because I had already gotten whatever it was we were covering in class. I think being smart is valuable and part of who I am and part of what makes me special in the world. I also think always being the smart kid can be damaging and limiting.
What I learned from being the smart kid: you always have to know the right answer. You always have to succeed (at least at things that rely on you being smart; I never had a 4.0 because of my B/B+ PE grades, and as an adult, I'm okay with not being good at physical things).
Illustrative story 1: The beginning of seventh grade, possibly even the first day of seventh grade, and one of the kids I've known since fourth grade raises his hand and says, in response to something I can't even remember now, "Ruth is always right." Our English teacher looks at us and says, "Ruth is always right," as if it's a truism about the universe.
Illustrative story 2: In tenth grade, we had an awesome Honors Biology teacher. One of the things she did was extra credit on tests if you happened to use whatever she'd chosen as the secret word, which was always something we'd talked about in class. (This is relevant to the story so you know that giving extra credit for creativity was a thing she did.) We would go over our tests as a class when we got them back. For one test, she asked someone to read his answer, for which she'd given him a point, and he read out, "For the right answer, see Ruth's paper."
I didn't just learn that smart kids are supposed to know the right answer; I learned that I was supposed to know the right answer. The most important thing I've learned as an adult is that it's okay to fail and it's okay to be wrong. Intellectually, I know this is true. But I still haven't totally internalized it, and getting something wrong can still send me into an internal "I'm not good enough" shame spiral.
I also struggle against the way that "smart" is a hard label to expand beyond. When you're smart, you're supposed to only believe in and engage in things that are intellectual, scientific, fact-based. I'm smart, but that's not all I am: I'm creative; I have a tender and deeply loving heart; I have a daily spiritual practice that connects me to the divinity/oneness of the whole universe. There might be science that says creativity, feelings, and meditation are beneficial to us, but creativity, feelings, and meditation in and of themselves are not intellectual activities, and I keep hitting up against that belief that intellectual things are the only worthy pursuits, even though it's the creativity, feelings, and meditation that make me happy.
I know some of you were also smart kids growing up. Did you have some of these same experiences? Have you found ways to learn to be okay with being wrong? How about ways to expand beyond "smart"?
I was always the smart kid growing up. I got good grades and had the highest SAT scores in my graduating class. Teachers didn't always know what to do with me. I spent a lot of time withdrawing and reading because I had already gotten whatever it was we were covering in class. I think being smart is valuable and part of who I am and part of what makes me special in the world. I also think always being the smart kid can be damaging and limiting.
What I learned from being the smart kid: you always have to know the right answer. You always have to succeed (at least at things that rely on you being smart; I never had a 4.0 because of my B/B+ PE grades, and as an adult, I'm okay with not being good at physical things).
Illustrative story 1: The beginning of seventh grade, possibly even the first day of seventh grade, and one of the kids I've known since fourth grade raises his hand and says, in response to something I can't even remember now, "Ruth is always right." Our English teacher looks at us and says, "Ruth is always right," as if it's a truism about the universe.
Illustrative story 2: In tenth grade, we had an awesome Honors Biology teacher. One of the things she did was extra credit on tests if you happened to use whatever she'd chosen as the secret word, which was always something we'd talked about in class. (This is relevant to the story so you know that giving extra credit for creativity was a thing she did.) We would go over our tests as a class when we got them back. For one test, she asked someone to read his answer, for which she'd given him a point, and he read out, "For the right answer, see Ruth's paper."
I didn't just learn that smart kids are supposed to know the right answer; I learned that I was supposed to know the right answer. The most important thing I've learned as an adult is that it's okay to fail and it's okay to be wrong. Intellectually, I know this is true. But I still haven't totally internalized it, and getting something wrong can still send me into an internal "I'm not good enough" shame spiral.
I also struggle against the way that "smart" is a hard label to expand beyond. When you're smart, you're supposed to only believe in and engage in things that are intellectual, scientific, fact-based. I'm smart, but that's not all I am: I'm creative; I have a tender and deeply loving heart; I have a daily spiritual practice that connects me to the divinity/oneness of the whole universe. There might be science that says creativity, feelings, and meditation are beneficial to us, but creativity, feelings, and meditation in and of themselves are not intellectual activities, and I keep hitting up against that belief that intellectual things are the only worthy pursuits, even though it's the creativity, feelings, and meditation that make me happy.
I know some of you were also smart kids growing up. Did you have some of these same experiences? Have you found ways to learn to be okay with being wrong? How about ways to expand beyond "smart"?