thebulge

We only have a choice of which we want to start with. Eventually we end up with both.

I used to be this way, grew up being told I was smart, scored extremely high on standardized tests with minimal effort... I viewed those who had to work extremely hard as lesser individuals, thinking that I could work as hard as them at any time if I wanted to truly showcase my ability.

The truth is that actually putting in the time and effort when the time came proved to be far more difficult than I had believed all along. It took something that I wanted desperately to be good at, but couldn't just pick up in a weekend to make me change my views. Programming was/is it for me. There's more to learn than I could ever hope to understand and it has been a humbling experience to say the least.

Everyone is an incomplete person in some way. I think my flaws are characteristics inherent in my being that would have been that way had people told me I was smart or not. I knew pretty early on that things came quickly to me; the validation may have inflated my ego, but I don't know that it outright caused me to run from challenges along the way. I did that on my own. Sigh.