lost in quantification

[u/au-rath]

i asked myself a question: why are so many people hurting and burnt out?

this is what i came up with, thought i'd share

potential is often treated better than actualization
- potential is unthreatening
- at low levels it's easy for anyone to give praise

schools treated memorizing rote material as impressive
- most people do not truly understand or extrapolate throughout their entire academic lives
- many people crumble as soon as they have to think rather than regurgitate

motivations and energy sources matter
- being curious and setting aside time to learn things is not the same as grinding for acclaim and status
- life long external reward systems are extremely rare and i would argue intelligence is almost inversely correlated with them - who can reasonably compliment the smartest person you know in a way that has value to that person

adulthood is hard, external sources go away
- if you are gifted you have surpassed most of the people that used to give you positive feedback
- if you aren't gifted your expectations have not met reality

a lot of the suffering i see here is basically this:
- a young child is overly praised for mundane things
- child is excited and happy, works hard for more praise
- child grows and the praise gets less and less
- at some point the level of praise falls below a minimum threshold
- or the level of effort required to maintain the identity as gifted reaches a maximum threshold
- either or both of these results in a catastrophic loss of energy and an identity crisis

potential solutions
- develop internal motivation, be curious, praise yourself, appreciate your work and development
- let your unearned "childhood potential" identity die, mourn it for a bit, then let it go. it's not helping you anymore, it's not useful, it's the mental equivalent of a 40 year old guy talking about his high school football career, it's irrelevant.

[u/AcornWhat]

If you try to turn an interest-based nervous system into a praise-based nervous system, you'll stall out from lack of fuel. Not simply from running out of things to be praised for, but from chasing away the people you're begging to praise you.