If we rule out the factor of genetics, everyone is equally capable in terms of their brain function. Then why are some people smarter than others? Well, you can look up Google and read articles to find the answer. This post however, is a dump of a mix of my reasoning and my personal story.

This is a story back when I was in sixth standard. I was not a quote-unquote bright kid in the class. Our maths teacher gave us some class exercise to solve mathematical expressions containing negative integers.

I sucked at it, my brain could not think through how two negative numbers could add up and still have the negative sign on it. After struggling on the first problem, I asked my teacher for help and he responded with:

I am not gonna answer this as I have been teaching this since weeks, why didn’t you question me back then?

I ended up sucking at such math problems the whole year. “How the fuck does this story align with the title of this blog post?”… Hold my 🍺.

You see… math concepts are built from basics. Had I not been able to figure out the way to solve negative integer problems, I would suck at maths in the following years too. Seeing myself suck at problems my friends could solve with ease would make me think “I am not as smart as my friends”. This single notion could trigger a “snowballing effect”. This is a problem. Specially in a society where overall intellect is judged upon academic excellence.

Snowballing of thoughts:

  • I’m not good at studies.
  • I understand things very slow.
  • No matter how much I try. I won’t be able to do this.

Eventually, you become what you think you are. The “subconscious mind” factor is more influential in early ages where everyone’s overall personality is being built from daily experiences. I have seen this pattern of negative feedback loop repeat too often. A little confidence and some perseverance goes a long way ✨. This highlights the importance of nurturing and uplifting environment for kids. I guess I should call myself lucky (if not luck then what? 🤔) that I took the extra mile and did some self study lol.

So yeah, replace mathematics with something else. And now you know, why you are dumb.