Wasted Intellect

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I have always thought myself to be intelligent, but not brilliant. Last time I took an IQ test my score was 145. I never even really looked up what it meant. But my gf was browsing around the internet and asked me the other day "what was your IQ score again?" I was like "145-146 I think, why?" "Well the scale says that's genius level".

And here I am thinking. Failing grades, mediocre art, great singing voice . . . great video game player. Yup, Wasted intellect. Yet I do not feel one bit sorry for it.

Also I just turned 30 two days ago, Maybe irrelevant, maybe awesome. Worst part is a tornado hit by our house yesterday and we got no electricity so I am bunking at the library.

Urg I am having a hard time with linear thought today. The point of the thread is:

Do any of you feel you have wasted your intellect? Or is this perceptual?

I surely feel in that way about myself. I've never taken an IQ test and so I don't know what my IQ is. I have university degrees and I performed pretty well academically. Yet I had a long unemployment period and finally got a job well below my capabilities. It's very frustrating. I believe that it's mostly due to my total lack of interpersonal skill and the consequent very low self-esteem. Now I realize that it's not because I didn't try hard enough. I will try and see what I can do about it now that I'm aware of my brain condition. And the same can be said about you. If you want to, you can always consciously try to utilize your good intelligence.

Weird but I'm the same age and have the same IQ. On paper I'm doing ok but I've wasted a lot of time in unemployment and depression too. I've had periods of good progress/learning (e.g. being obsessed with a useful special interest) but periods where I just play games all day too for long periods of time. So yeah, wasted intellect a lot of the time.

Right now I'm trying to get excited about Arduino and electronics so hopefully this will be a new special interest and I'll learn a lot =)

I have an AA in business was working on a Bachelor's degree but I withdrew again (its been the second time, I think, I have withdrawn from university). The curriculum just was not up to my liking and what is worse, I ran out of Pell grant benefit years so, I probably won't go back to school until I can get some solid loans and find a program that suits me better.

My job history is very poor and eclectic. And I doubt I will find a job where I can get paid to doodle all day =/

Drop out, traveling bum, drop out again, homeless twice, no career or vocational qualifications.

But I can make amazing things and have a high IQ.

Bit of a mash up really, my life, so short answer is yes.

I have taken online tests but they put me in only around 127 or so, which is a little below genius level. In junior high school I was in a gifted science program. I was testing at 4 grades above level and thought I was going to be a superachiever, but then sexual abuse, puberty, eating disorder, depression and hospitalization happened and all my plans got derailed. I wound up quitting high school and getting a GED many years later (because I was scared I would fail it!). Instead of being a neurosurgeon or something really awesome I currently work for lawyers as a secretary, many of which I have a hard time respecting intellectually. It sucks, but I have only myself to blame for my poor choices.

Yeah, I get what you mean. I am supposed to be some kind of amazing student, but I'm still working on my BS.

If it helps any, think of how many other people have the same IQ score you have, or higher. For a score of 145, there are nearly ten million people with that same ability to score that high. Which means--if you fail, if you mess up or don't reach your potential, that doesn't mean that the world will forever be poorer for it, that you've hurt everybody. It just means that, sooner or later, one of those ten million people (or someone with a talent, who can't score that high) would make the contribution you're worried about not making. Yes, it does matter that everybody contributes, because if nobody did we'd get nowhere; but it does mean that if you fail, you're not going to doom anything. Other people can pick up the slack. And, anyway, IQ isn't really a measure of intelligence; it's more of a measure of how well you do on an IQ test.

It helps sometimes to remember that I'm not really that important or that special, because that means that I don't have to try to carry the world around on my back.

Yes. I feel that I had, or perhaps have, unused potential. It does make me sad sometimes. Other times, I am grateful for my relatively normal life and see many ways things could have gone badly for me had I been subjected to the kinds of stress experienced by child prodigies who are thrust into the limelight.

I see this scenario all too often with people on the spectrum. There needs to be more supportive employers and more adult services everywhere. There's so much potential going to waste.

What age were you when you quit art?

About 12 =/ I wanted to draw and tried for a bit and it really did not work out for me so I stopped. Just flat out stopped. After that I just refrained except for excessive abstract doodling in my notebooks and such. Last year I picked it up again, starting as a suggestion from a friend to relieve stress with charcoal and paper. Then I just obtained a new obsessive interest after that and been engaged in it every sense. Even got a deviant art page. And for a few months now I have been stuck on trying to draw Dryads with minimal success. Human anatomy eludes me a great deal past portraits.

I'd link some stuff, but im at the library and it for some reason the website is BLOCKED by them.

IQ scores reflect nothing about intelligence. Furthermore, how can you ''waste'' your intelligence? Do intelligent people have some kind of a divine mission to serve humanity or else? No problem if you are happy.

Yes, my intellect is wasted. I frequently get the line "You're so smart! You could be doing anything!" I tell them my intellect is wasted since I don't have the interpersonal skills necessary to use them.

Mirror21, I have a similar history, I used to draw when younger, until 14 maybe 15, and then my perfectionism took over.
Maybe try a simpler subject, animal forms might be easier?

Somberlain, happiness is key, I agree. If someone can't satisfy themselves first, they have no chance to fulfill any divine calling.