What smart is

If I have one thing I wish I could tell the smart students I've met in my life, it is this:

Smart is not what you are. Smart is what you do.

That's it.

I spent a good chunk of my life doing smart things, like studying hard in school, not getting into trouble with the law, not taking controlled substances, etc. But at some point, smart became my identity. This, in itself, wasn't bad. But that became divorced from the "doing smart things" part. It meant I wasn't working productively, every day, to be more knowledgeable, more wise, and, critically, to make intelligent choices and actions.

I'm not the only one. High school had its share of people who believed smart was a fixed quantity, an identity to be celebrated and bragged about until reality proved inconvenient. These people, like me, reacted in ways characterized by the five stages of grief--denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance... assuming any of us got beyond depression.

College had some people that had trouble dealing with the disconnect between the smart identity they had carried with them for their entire lives and their apparent academic prowess. And again, people reacted in different ways--some by studying more, or studying more intelligently, or by redefining their value system, or by rejecting what they had pursued and valued their entire lives in a fit of pique. I did a bit of each, but heavier on the pique than I'd like to admit.

Anyway, this post was intended to be short, and therefore hopefully of greater impact, than most. Smart is not who you are. Smart is what you do, every day. It adds up, and is somewhat (but not entirely) cumulative, and barring significant biological or psychological changes, you can rely on it for the most part for the rest of your life.

But, please, get over yourself. Or get over your self-debasement, if self-aggrandizement is not your problem. If you think you are smart, shut the fuck up about it and do something with it. If you think you aren't smart, shut the fuck up and do something to make yourself incrementally smarter.