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by inZGBl 3202 days ago
I think that's probably more personality than anything else. I was always told I was smart and was never motivated. Perfect example: I took the ACT only once because I scored a 30 and it wasn't worth it for me to try to improve that score. Meanwhile, all of my honors & AP class friends took it several times scoring 33s, 34s, & 35s.

This was a direct result of my "intelligence complex" and yet I have no trouble learning new things. I actually get extremely bored if I'm not digging in depth into new subjects every 6-9 months. Speaks to why I have several unfinished websites because I wanted to learn a new framework, unused golf clubs, tons of cooking utensils but no food, etc.

I love to learn, I just never learned how to be motivated or competitive or persistent.

3 comments

It's probably because the first 80% is really easy to learn so you get all the gratification of "being smart", without ever having to do anything difficult.
It's actually because I tend to be very action-oriented so at some point I get fed up with all of the planning and have to dive in and do something. Then, at a certain point down the road, I realize that the resource requirements (typically time or money) to get to where I want to be are too high so I drop it. I actually get more frustration than gratification out of it.
I also struggle in this manner. If I don't grok something, I'm intensely motivated to work on/with it until I do. If I'm not careful though, that motivation completely disappears the moment I achieve a sense of an understanding of the topic.
My rule for cooking is now to never buy any cookware unless I'm going to use it that day.