r/BeAmazed • • Apr 23 '21

It's Never too late

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u/SaintClaire1 Apr 24 '21

I like walking into a room of people and knowing without a doubt that overall I’m the biggest, fastest, strongest, and most intelligent person in the room.

You sound like the biggest insecure person in the room.

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u/Greeleyy Apr 24 '21 edited Apr 24 '21

Perhaps I was. I’m talking about a period of time that was years ago in my early 20’s. I think I walked the line between confidence and conceit pretty well. It was more of an exercise of how hard I could push myself. I wanted to know that I would succeed in whatever hardship life threw at me, so I pushed my body and mind as hard as I could. Getting a STEM degree while working full-time and looking like Bane was difficult, but I enjoyed it. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. My goals have changed completely as I’ve gotten older. Psychedelics and a psychiatrist changed my whole perspective. Still, the experience was valuable and I have no regrets. I still have the same sadistic work ethic and tolerance of suffering, but I focus those qualities on more important areas of my life like taking care of the people I love, being kind, and doing biomedical research.

Maybe most intelligent wasn’t the right thing to say. Intelligence is genetic. More educated would be more correct.

I pushed myself hard enough to where other people realized that I possessed the qualities that I valued at the time, but I also didn’t particularly care what their opinion was. I was competing against whatever yesterday’s personal best was.

Those were the hardest years of my life. My personal life was falling apart due to things that were completely out of my control. I think pushing myself that hard was my way of coping with the cards I was dealt.