Being smart seems to be everyone’s goal, right?
We all would say we’d like to be smarter, faster, better and quicker at thinking. It’s a very highly praised trait in todays society, being SMART.
But is it all it’s cracked up to be?
The truth is there are actually quite a few downsides to intelligence, and problems that you’ll only really have when you’re a certain level of ‘smart’. It’s easy for people to say ‘I wish I was smarter’ but most people don’t consider the downsides.
What are the disadvantages of being intelligent?
There are lots of problems you’ll face when you’re super smart, and I haven’t even listed them all here. There are LOTS of them. In no particular order:
1: You can get lost in studies
When you’re smart, studying is kinda fun.
You like learning about new things, concepts and ideas and it’s very easy to get LOTS in your studies. Now, on the surface this isn’t a bad thing but it leads to an imbalance between your work life and social life.
Because smart people tend to be GOOD at what they do, it’s hard to switch off and lots of them become workaholics. This means you’re much less likely to hang out with your friends and grab a beer (more on that later, that’s a whole other problem!)
A good middle ground is to just set work schedules for yourself, and only work in certain time blocks. Easier said than done I know, but this is what I do. I set blocks of time where I work, and I do NO work outside those blocks unless it’s an emergency. I also take a nootropic but that’s another story.
2: You’re very much in your head
One of the biggest problems with having a powerhouse for a brain is that you’re always going to be in it. Just thinking things, questioning situations, analysing people and experiences. Doing anything EXCEPT actually being in the moment and living your life.
And this leads to lots of other problems like not being fully present in your relationships, friendships, not being aware of what’s going on. Just thinking and being trapped in your brain. It sounds like it’s not too bad, but trust me it can ruin relationships and make you feel terrible long term.
There’s a section at the end of this post about getting OUT of your head, so read that if you’re interested!
3: You might get picked on
This applies mainly to people who are still in school, college or university. You’ll probably get picked on. Our society is still at the point where we don’t like SUPER intelligence.
That is to say, we like the idea of it, but especially young people don’t like seeing it in real life. They like KNOWING about smart people, watching Elon Musk interviews etc, but when they’re sat next to a boffin, they’ll usually pick on them.
And this is something that’s been happening in the school system for generations. I’m not sure why, and I really don’t know at what point it became funny or normal to pick on smart people. I think it fundamentally stems form jealousy..
The people who are less smart than the victim are jealous because it’s a threat to them. So they pick on them, put them down, and side with the rest of the pack (because most of the time, the AVERAGE is not super smart).
If the room was full of super smart people, then the dumb person would probably get picked on. I think it stems from our EGOs and how we manage them. We typically don’t learn about our ego until much later in life (if at all), so young people in particular are prone to this ‘pack ego thinking’.
4: It can often lead to arrogance
Arrogance is not a good trait. It’s like a mixture of pride and confidence, but portrayed in a way that makes other people feel worse.
Super intelligent people usually become arrogant. It’s probably because they’ve gone their whole lives being smarter than most of the other people they meet, and when their ego realises that, it has a field day. It starts telling you that you’re better than everyone else, that they matter less etc.
The ego is a HUGE problem for us as humans. We’re the only species that has an ego (and we’re also the species that’s killed the most and damaged the environment, go figure).
5: You get trapped in arborescent thinking
Arborescent thinking means you have one thought, and then that leads to another, and another and so on.
Before you know it, you’ve been laying there until 4AM just thinking about pointless, random stuff that really doesn’t matter and has no bearing on your actual life. This is an interesting place for me to bring up the concept of worry.
I think worrying about things in general, is completely pointless. You worry about something you think is going to happen, and right up until it happens, you fear it, worry about it, and then it either happens or it doesn’t. There is NO reason for us to worry, or fear anything, ever.
Let’s say you’re scared about a zombie invasion that you think is going to happen next week. So you panic, stress about it, and fear it. But really, NOTHING damages or harms you until the moment the zombie actually turns up and starts eating you.
But until that point, there’s no need for worry or fear. Preparation is different, and it’s smart to be AWARE and PREPARE for things, but never to fear them or worry.
6: You stop doing what society deems normal
Here’s the thing:
Most of the things society does, are dumb as fuck.
I mean things like:
- Getting into debt
- Drinking and getting drunk every weekend
- Smoking and doing recreational drugs
- Gossiping and causing drama
- Being negative and putting people down
- Working a job you hate even when you KNOW you hate it
- Wasting time watching pointless TV shows while at the same time complaining about your life, and how you don’t earn enough money and you’re not doing the thing you want to be doing (That’s a really common one!)
- Buying pointless items and things you just don’t need to try and fill the gap in yourself that the previous sentence explains, that you just can’t seem to fill (Oh yeah we’re going deep today)
- Eating meat and dairy and junk food
And so what happens is the smarter you get, the more you start to open your eyes to all of those things. You just start cutting them off like dead weight, things holding you back.
When you’re super intelligent, you don’t eat crap.
You don’t tend to gossip, or smoke or do drugs, because you’re smart enough to realise it’s bad for you and it’s not going to make your life better in the long term. This happened to me a few years ago when I went plant based after learning about the health benefits and how our biology really works.
But the problem is by being a certain level of smart and STOPPING doing all of those things, you alienate your old friends. Your friends that you used to get drunk with, smoke with, order junk food with..
They’ll say you’ve changed and you’re no longer ‘fun’. And for them that’s true. But for you, they’re the ones who need to change, and who you don’t want to hang around with as much any more. You want MORE. You want better people, who are motivated and want to live their best life.
You no longer want to hang around with losers. And that’s a downside of intelligence because sometimes it’s painful. Especially if you’ve known someone a long time, And you’re dedicated to becoming better, and they’re just .. left behind.
7: People get jealous and want you to fail
Another problem stemming from ego. Our egos are protective creatures. they want us to feel comfortable and not threatened. So if we see someone doing better, or more than use our egos step in and say ‘I wish they’d fail’.
And our egos tell us to encourage those people doing better than us to fail. It’s linked to jealousy, same thing is happening really. so when you’re super smart, people get jealous of that and want you to fail, or make an error.
Now for me, that’s not a problem at all. It just makes me even more confident in my ability, or it shows me where I need to do more work. I think for some people though, that pressure can wear them down and it becomes a bit tiring. Instead of your peers supporting you, they’re just waiting for you to fail.
In that case, you’ve got to cut the toxic people out. Your friends and family should support and help you, not tear you down.
8: You get SUPER comfortable
This is more of an internal struggle, but when you’re smart you get comfortable.
If you can coast on your achievements, why not? Smart people might for example build an app that makes them some money, and then just sit on that income and do nothing.
Or in school, they might find it a lot easier to get good grades, so they’ll just do the minimum amount of work needed, and then do nothing else. People are very prone to getting comfortable and complacent. In fact I wrote another post about this called ‘were drowning in conformity’ which I think explains this nicely.
9: You keep correcting people
If you see someone making a mistake, you’ll correct them.
One of the biggest problems smart people have is they see people making mistakes every day. Getting drunk, doing the wrong thing, applying for the wrong job.. even making spelling mistakes.
And they have to correct them! Because to a smart person, mistakes need to be addressed, and corrected. They don’t mean to be annoying, but it just happens naturally. They’re better at seeing and calling out mistakes for the most part.
10: You can feel very misunderstood
Whenever you have a situation where you’re very different from the rest of the people around you, you’ll feel misunderstood and lonely. It’s just human nature. We want to fit in and be one of the gang.
Luckily in todays world, this one’s very easy to fix.
If you don’t like or understand the people around you, you can change them! Just make new friends, go to a new place.. Even move to another country! You can very easily and quickly put yourself in a new situation, especially if you work remotely as a digital nomad.
11: You can come across as intimidating
I guess this is mainly true in relationships and dating, but it can apply to friendships as well. When you’re super smart, one of the downsides is that you’ll tend to come across as being unapproachable and intimidating to the other person.
There are some things you can do to avoid this, and it’s mainly got to do with just getting out of your head and being able to turn your brain OFF.
If you can learn how to turn your brain off whenever you want, you’ll be a POWERHOUSE. A person who is super smart, but also kind and empathic, and able to turn their brain off whenever they want to get into their body, is a champion.
But people like this are very rare. It’s rare enough to find someone who’s super smart, or super in tune with their body and the present moment. Let alone finding someone who can do both, but we are out there!
12: People might use you
And I suppose the last problem smart people have is that they might get used by other people. People might use you to solve or help them solve their problems. You’ll be called on to fix a printer, help someone invest their savings, or whatever other small task people need doing.
I think this partly comes from laziness because in the information age, anyone can look up and learn ANYTHING within a few seconds, but I guess people like to talk to someone who’s done the thing. So I do get it, and I think as long as your friends aren’t ALWAYS coming to you for help, it’s not too much of a problem.
Just don’t let yourself get used as the walking slave/encyclopedia.
Are smart people more lonely?
Intelligence has been known to cause people to remain in isolation. When you’re a certain level of intelligent, you tend to avoid talking to or interacting with people that are a LONG way off your level of intelligence.
For the most part, this is natural. Birds of a feather flock together, and there’s some merit to sticking with people who are just like you. But that’s just the thing. Because super intelligence isn’t actually that common, it’s hard to find people who are like you.
And so what happens is super smart people tend to be slightly more reclusive, lonely and want to just keep to themselves. Now please be aware that this is NOT a rule. There are lots of exceptions to this and it’s not the case for everyone.
It’s just something that’s fairly common and lots of smart people have come out on record and said the same thing. I think it’s something that will become better with time because in the age of information, people all around the world are getting smarter and learning more and more.
Intelligence is becoming a much more desired state and more and more people WANT to become smarter. So the future looks bright for smart people.
Get into the body
I have to say a few things about being smart, and HEAD intelligence.
Head intelligence refers to things you’re doing in your head, with your BRAIN.
Cognitive intelligence and thinking are all things you’re doing internally, and for lots of the time this is great. We need our brains in order to think, solve problems and so on. But a HUGE problem in our society is that we’re TRAPPED in our heads.
We’re trapped in THINKING patterns.
Thinking patterns like ‘I wonder what they think of me’ or ‘What will happen if I fail doing this thing?’. We worry ourselves into an early grave, just by overthinking. If you look around at the youth of the world today, they’re looking down at their phones.
They’re reading things, learning, scrolling and in their own world. They’re in their HEADS. And really, in order to fully experience life and be in the present moment we need to get OUT of our heads. You can’t fully live in the moment if you’re thinking all the time.
Use your brain as a tool
Now, to avoid confusion let me restate this: The brain is important.
It’s well worth becoming smarter, learning things, sharpening your ax so to speak. But don’t let it consume you, instead use the brain as a TOOL. When you need to solve a problem, think about something and make decisions (for the most part) use your brain.
But some decisions require you to follow your heart and not your head. Following your heart is also referred to as following your ‘gut instinct’. It’s all about using your body instead of your head, because your head can VERY easily be manipulated.
Your thoughts and beliefs can be very easily changed, influenced and tricked. Thinking patterns plague our world, so don’t always use your head for everything. Every now and then get out of your head and just clear your mind. This is why it’s SO important to meditate every day and just get into nature.
One of the best ways of getting into your body is to do something that FORCES you to shut your brain off and just DO the thing. Skydiving is a great example, because when you’re hurtling towards the ground at 120mph, you don’t have the option of overthinking things.
You’re just there. In the moment, living.
Don’t become a slave to your own brain. USE your brain as a tool, but make sure you can also switch to BEING in your body. Do that, and you’ll be unstoppable.