What to do when you feel like you've wasted your potential?

[votingmachine]

It is a funny thing that telling people they are smart is a bad thing. When children are complemented on a test with the compliment that they really worked hard, they seek to test that with harder challenges, and don't fear failure. When children are complimented on a test with the compliment that they are so smart, they begin to avoid challenges, and do fear failure. One of the things that is striking in your post is that you seem to have internalized that. You believe the compliment you are smart. And you want to use that. But you have avoided the possibility of failure, and are consequently feeling like a failure.

I don't have an answer on how. But you have to desensitize yourself to the fear of failure. You have to internally praise yourself for HARD WORK, not success. Go do something hard. Don't listen to others. Take 50 days to solve in impossible jigsaw puzzle and don't talk about it. It will be hard and it will take impossible amounts of work. Do some things that take work. More things can be accomplished with work than with natural "smart" talent.

People fail all the time. You may live your life and never succeed at a single thing. There is no guarantee. But what is holding you back is the idea that you should be able to succeed because you know internally how smart you are, and it should be easy, and if it isn't, that tears up your internal esteem. Screw that. Ask the stupid question. Look stupid. Laugh about it. Learn to work hard at things that you like, and fail like everyone else. Seek challenges, work hard, and learn to not fear failure.

Besides, you probably will never do anything that distinguishes you from the other 7 billion humans on the planet ... no one is THAT good. But at least you can know that you worked hard and did a few things that mattered to you. (This last is not to kick you when you are down, but to hopefully help change perspective).

 

[Zxzx25]

Wow the responses I had on here are incredible, I never imagined people would be so kind, just to clarify I was in an incredibly bad mood when I posted this, it's my only post and I just wanted to share my thoughts and feelings with someone, looking back, I kind of sound like a narcissist, maybe it's more of a between-the-lines kind of thing, but I think it can be inferred that I expect to be rewarded simply for having a passion/higher than average intelligence, I would go back and punch my teenage self in the nutsack if I could, not for failing mind you, I think I already made peace with that, but for thinking the world owes me, I have to admit sometimes I felt like I was God's gift to the world, maybe I was raised to believe that, one of the people that responded I believe noticed this and layed the cold hard truth on me, which is that science isn't about sitting with a tobacco pipe and blowing smoke rings while stroking your beard, it involves a lot of not so fun things such as sitting on your ass for hours practicing Integrals/memorizing facts/cursing at your papers, I replied by thanking him/her, also some people mentioned that I attribute failure to who I am as a person, I think that's also true, a friend once told that I would be too harsh on myself whenever I'd fail, it's something that I've been aware of and working on, regarding whether or not I really do think science is my passion, I certainly didn't think so in my teenage years, I thought about lots of different things, I still do, I'm a person with lots of interests, but I tend to catch myself thinking about the nature of the universe a bit too often, which is a sign for me I suppose, I'll have a lot to think about during the next few weeks/months, thank you all for your responses, the community in this forum is one of the best :), I wish you all a good life and I hope you are all enjoying yourselves, keep contributing to the scientific community.