Highly Intelligent People Aren’t Miserable

Some just think they are

Kyrylo Kireiev

Some people just love to blame their problems on their superior intelligence. It’s the biggest humble brag out there, and a very convenient excuse for acting like a prick.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

— Albert Einstein

Highly intelligent people aren’t miserable, but insecure ones are. We can probably assume that some highly intelligent people are insecure, and that’s the real root of their problems.

For a while, I bought into this shtick — that super smart people have to settle for misery. Then I climbed out of my head and started looking around. The smartest people didn’t suffer from social stigmas, and they didn’t make a big show of their intelligence.

They used their brains to help others, and themselves. They loved consuming and sharing knowledge. It made them happy.

I started taking notes.

There’s no single measure of intelligence

Let’s say you totally nailed the SAT or some other standardized test. Great, you have one form of intelligence mastered. That doesn’t mean everyone around you is an idiot, or just “average.”