[Legend2440]

>If you read a few books on mathematics you think you're easily going to become one of the top mathematicians?

No - but you will easily become more educated in math than most people. 99.9% of people couldn't tell you the difference between a derivative and a integral.

It's not about becoming an expert. You don't need to be the best in the world to be usefully good at something.

[nextlevelwizard]

I have an engineering degree and I can’t remember the difference since I have literally never needed either since school.

Just like examples in the post it self, sure you can get better fast, but if no one cares why bother? Oh you got a bit better ELO in chess, nice, what now? Now your average friends don’t want to play you and you aren’t good enough to beat anyone at the chess club. So either you quit or you have to dedicate yourself.

Same with the shooter game. Do you really want to play a video game competitively? If yea then go ahead but you need to do more than just play to get good which again probably means switching friend circles

[Legend2440]

You’re right, you should just be bad at everything. That’s a much better way to live your life.

[nextlevelwizard]

Just because I don’t want to get better at a game doesn’t mean I want to be or am bad at anything much less everything.

What I am trying to say is that you should get better at things that matter to you. I am sure you could get better than most people at making sand castles put of feces real fast, but is that something you should do.

[dehrmann]

>> 99.9% of people couldn't tell you the difference between a derivative and a integral.

> I have an engineering degree and I can’t remember the difference

Really? I realized I forgot the mechanics of computing the closed-form solutions (like you, I used this type of calculus for maybe four years of my life), but the idea of derivatives being the rate of change stuck with me.

[baxtr]

And integrals are the sum of things.