As I talked about in another thread, I consider myself to be a "smart" person who continues to do stupid things. I know EXACTLY what i'm supposed to do to "succeed" in life, but I just can't be bothered to do them. Here are some examples of what I mean:
1. I'm currently in an educational "rut". I know that all I have to do get out of it is apply myself for 1 year and finish "a" degree, but i don't want to. Even though i know that I CAN do it if I want to and its for my own benefit to do so.
(At this very moment I should be studying for a test I have in 2 days, but I don't feel like it because I hate the subject.
I should've been studying for the past month and didn't want to..right now I can cram and still do fine..but i don't want to.)
At the same time, even if I hate this subject I could be doing something for another subject which I hate less or I could even just have fun doing things I enjoy, but because this drags me down, I don't do anything. I basically come up with ways of "wasting time" without even enjoying it.
2. I'm currently in some family circumstances that cause me a lot of stress. I know that if I don't interfere in these family circumstances and just mind my own business/ignore the situation my stress will be reduced. BUT knowing this I continue to participate. Its difficult to describe but its a combination of human curiousity/not wanting my family to make mistakes that causes this.
3. I do a lot of work (chores mostly) really quickly in order to free time up for myself and I do this very well but when it comes to using all the free time I created, I just don't do it. I waste it very efficiently. So my conclusion is that yes people can be smart, but there's an emotional connection between applying your "intelligence" in real life and true intelligence is knowing how to get control of your emotions. That is to stop living as a "human" who has impulses and feelings and doing the most "productive" thing. Yeah, I know it sounds like i'm saying we should all become robots, but its not exactly what I mean. I wish steve's article on procrastination would deal more with the emotional side-more with the root of why people do it in the first place (maybe I should read it again) because I know exactly how to fight procrastination, but I procrastinate in applying these methods!
What i'm trying to say is that people who aren't neccessarily considered "smart" can probably get a lot done in life by simplying having the motivation and dedication to do so.
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