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I've been wondering in the past few days: Most questions on here are about our DC, but how are the parents doing?

We spent the holidays surrounded by my in-laws and it drove my OEs went through the roof... I felt overstimulated in most ways - the smells, the sounds, the sights, etc. By the end of it, I was also extremely eager to get back to my routine so I could read more and resume learning Spanish(my third language) and my music lessons/practice.

And that led me to wonder how everyone on here is doing. Do any/many of you have OEs? Are you sufficiently stimulated in your current environment? Do you ever feel a bit odd? Do you share all of your thoughts with anyone?

This last question is an interesting one for me - I am particularly interested in evolution, natural selection, etc., though it is entirely unrelated to my own field (law). And asking myself that last question, I realized that I've been reading a lot of popular science books (from the likes of Jared Diamond and Bryan Sykes, etc.), and yet I never, ever talk to anyone about my thoughts on the subject. I talk to my husband about politics and history and other subjects, but he finds science quite boring.

I am far from being an intellectual or an academic, but I'm just so interested in so many subjects! Of course, that could just be my ADD showing itself. Who knows.

Anyway, there's a bit of verbal diarrhea for you. Does anyone else feel that way? Always a bit like a fish out of water?

My abridged answer is: Yes!

Here's the longer version:

1. Do any/many of you have OEs?

Yes, every box on Dabrowski's list is ticked for me. Add to that some (pleasant) synaesthesia. Case in point: for the last three months, I've been running on an average of 4 hours of sleep per night, for a variety of reasons relating to all of Dabrowski's categories.

At some point or another, I've been told by most of the people I'm closest to that I'm unusually "intense" or "passionate". I speak quickly, come up with new ideas on the fly, get inspired and emotionally invested in ideas, and get really excited to find people to share that with. I've been asked many times how I sustain such passion for so long. Most of the time this is said with positive regard, but I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that some people are really off-put by my intensity. Such is life!

2. Are you sufficiently stimulated in your current environment?

On the work front, no. In my personal activities, yes.

I'm fortunate in my work, in that it's a quasi-academic environment with graduate-trained colleagues, so it's still better suited to my needs than many alternatives. However, I am one of a limited group who actively seek out new challenges and like to push the envelope intellectually. It can be difficult to swim upstream constantly in an environment where most people see their work as lifestyle-driven, and not mission-driven. (This is probably an indication that it's not the right fit in the medium to long-term.)

If I could have a 100-hour day and only need 8 hours of sleep in that time, I'd spend most of my free time playing with my son and just expand my volunteer initiatives into the incremental hours. (Does anyone have a time turner?)

3. Do you ever feel a bit odd?

I regularly feel different from others, yes, but I don't internalize it in a negative way. I embrace who I am, as I hope we all do!

We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and I can find commonality and build rapport with pretty much anyone, because I generally love building relationships and most people are good people.

That being said, I find conversations with many people disheartening. Others' lack of self-awareness, limited sense of purpose, and inability to connect immediate personal concerns to larger societal/political trends is concerning to me. I find myself having to tread lightly, because these are generally good people, but ones who don't see much outside their quotidian lives, and who have limited vision for how they can create a lasting, positive change with their lives. It's a feeling of constantly needing to gently educate others and inspiring them to inform themselves for the betterment of their families and society, tempered by the disappointment of their apathy.

4. Do you share all of your thoughts with anyone?

It would be impossible to share all of my thoughts with anyone, because there isn't enough time in the day or a person patient enough to endure that! Heck, I fall asleep to my own never-ending stream of consciousness every day!

Levity aside, yes, I'm *able* to share myself fully with a handful of very dear friends--one of whom is my partner--but what I feel compelled to share with each is only a fraction of who I am. Each of us have differences in at least one critical area which makes full and mutual understanding an impossibility, but we can respect each other and admire our differences as well as our similarities. Different people meet different needs of mine, such that I feel heard and understood when I consider the totality of my relationships (and I hope that I provide that for them, as well!).

Other random thoughts

RRD, I'm going to throw another item into the mix where I feel quite different from the average person. More than anything, I feel my drive for constant self-improvement and unrelenting hunger to fix the wrongs of the world is what differentiates me. Whether this is distinct from the intellectual basket you alluded to, or part and parcel of it, remains to be determined.

I hear colleagues talking fondly about retiring and unwinding, whereas I see my life as a ~100-year horizon for making a meaningful, lasting contribution to the world. Issues like preventing child abuse, preventing domestic/inter-partner violence, legal reform on various topics, social justice in education and social services for children, needs-blind medical care, and optimal economic and political system design keep me constantly engaged.

Even when I'm taking "me" time (e.g. exercising, bathing, praying), these issues and my ability to fix them is CONSTANTLY on my mind, if on the back burner. It's like I have two parallel thought tracks playing at any time- what I'm attending to in the moment, and a parallel internal ideation dialogue.
I don't ever see myself "retiring" in the conventional sense. Rather, I'd like to kick up my efforts in these areas as my family situation allows (my son comes first!), gradually devoting my full time to these as I become an empty-nester.

To me, it is unconscionable that I be attuned to these issues, passionate about them, and able to elicit change, but not do so. I can only gape at others who either don't see the issues and feel their urgency, or who have no intention of using the talents they have for others. When I can make a compelling case for a subset of the population with unmet needs and be met with blank or uncaring responses, that disquiets me.

I don't care how intelligent or affluent someone is. Give me someone with a kind heart and a will to do good for others, and they get immense respect from me.

I'm also in the law and I used to feel that way.

Thankfully I have a family with just as wide a range of interests as my own. We're compulsive learners and sharers so even when the world at large wasn't as interested, we have each other. My wife's family is the same. My father-in-law even won a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to his engineering field. To him and my Mother-in-Law (a world renowned scientist), I'm probably considered slow-witted, lol.

High school and college were probably the toughest because you're trying to find a social space and not everyone shares your range of interests. I found that law school and later were much better social experiences.

Agreed. I've found the best alignment post-grad school with similarly trained professionals who participate in cause-based initiatives. More than anything, satisfaction seems to come from shared values, and the intellectual ability to share fully and reciprocally regarding those values and life experiences. In that case, it's not the education per se that creates the commonality, but it is often a useful proxy.

Copying aquinas' format:

1. Do any/many of you have OEs?

Check all five boxes for me, with particular emphasis on emotional (the reason I slept <4 hours last night), sensual (especially sound), and intellectual.

2. Are you sufficiently stimulated in your current environment?

Professionally, no. It fluctuates. Sometimes I'm working on novel and interesting problems under pressure and have to come up with creative solutions given resources, timeline, and/or criticality. Other times, I'm essentially doing other people's jobs or fixing their same repetitive problems because they're incompetent. Today has been an interesting mix of both.

Personally, yep. I'm finding time to pursue some of my own interests, parenting is a great adventure, and I have a partner who stimulates all of my overexcitabilities.

3. Do you ever feel a bit odd?

I wonder if everyone doesn't at some point, but, yes.

I've recently begun imagining personalities as polyhedrons, and as a gifted polymath I find that mine has many more sides and angles than most. That's a gift and a curse... a curse because you'll never find anyone with a similar shape, and a gift because you can find congruent sides with nearly anyone. As a result, I can find myself navigating large social groups and finding common ground with just about everyone, without making a true connection with any of them.

4. Do you share all of your thoughts with anyone?

Nope. See above.

Where I find more congruence, and/or more acceptance of incongruence, the more access that person has to my thoughts.

Nobody should ever have full access to all of my thoughts, because imaginational overexcitability. Some of those things are not for a general audience.

Other random thoughts

I'd like some pudding.

Omg. Ok, reading your posts feels so good. I really have to get back to work right now but will write some random thoughts later. Actually, a few very short ones:

Aquinas: I love your need to right the wrongs of the world. Strangely, I've always had that on a micro level. To explain quickly: I can't stand to see someone's feelings be hurt, I always get frustrated when people won't move to the back of the bus to let others in (so they can get out of the rain or get home to their families too), I don't like to see people butting in line, etc., etc. And strangely, I often feel guilty/frustrated that I can't carry that to a more macro level. Except for the environmental stuff - in that respect, it kills me that everyone doesn't want to save our planet. That one is especially strong for me. Sigh.

Aquinas: Is synaesthesia mostly a good or a bad experience? My first thought was that I would love to experience it. Strange?

Aquinas: A few other traits of mine that fall into the OEs: the need for accuracy and the need to follow rules. Our boys and I share those traits in spades. Re accuracy, the three of us have taken to saying "I'm not being pedantic, I'm just being pedagogical." It's particularly funny hearing this from our 6 year old!

Dude: I love the notion of polyhedron! I've always said that everyone is multi-faceted and so we can't get everything out of one person (a partner, a friend, whatever). I've always said that we need to draw from different relationships if we are to feel whole. Love the polyhedron.

I am going to come back and reread each of your posts. And I hope there will be more. I love being able to share some of this.

And I'm likely MG. I can't imagine how others who are PG might feel! Mind you, I might make up for LOG with my OEs in this respect.

Awesome! I'll just cut/paste your questions and reply in snippets.


I hear you! The little things we do on a daily basis speak to who we are, fundamentally.

And on the environmental stuff, yes! You'll laugh. I remember reading furiously about the environmental impact of disposable diapers when I was pregnant with DS, costing out a national diaper environmental model, and trying to figure out ways to economically remediate that problem. And that came from shopping for diapers as a first time parent.


Nah, not strange.

Mine is almost entirely positive. Because there are so many types of synaesthesia, the impacts will vary. My variety causes me to experience pleasant tactile sensations on my skin when I hear certain sounds. It feels a bit like receiving a gentle head and neck massage, and so I actively seek it out!

I do experience some misophonia, which can trigger the same kind of tactile response in a negative way (like someone crawling under your skin and trying to scratch/claw at it), but those instances are easier to avoid. Out of tune music and sharp scratching sounds are among the worst triggers, followed by chewing sounds. Ugh.


That's interesting! For you, I'm sensing that following the rules is akin to ensuring justice. Is that accurate? Love the pedantic/pedagogical quote!

(Full disclosure: I tend to see rules as flexible and covering "most" situations, but open to breaking when logical reasons demand it. But that likely falls into my general "better to beg forgiveness than ask permission" MO!)


Don't worry about LOG. Who you are is who you are, irrespective of arcane sub-labels.

I have no data on my LOG, so I'm useless for commentary in that regard. I was in gifted programming as a child after doing some form of ability testing, the school offered a double grade skip in public elementary, and I've since accelerated through university and in my career, but there's no subsequent test record that I can access. "Gifted whatever" I shall be, and high in OEs with you!

1. Do any/many of you have OEs?

Yes. I am frequently told not to think/care/plan/worry/do/feel/empathize so much, but I don’t want to be less...I want others to be more, or for them to at least meet me half way. I often feel like I understand and empathize with others, but there’s no reciprocity. It’s up to me to validate and care for myself (on top of being a sounding board and source of advice for others). The lack of positive feedback and accurate social mirroring also makes it that much harder to respect my own thoughts, perceptions or instincts, which I mostly keep to myself.

2. Are you sufficiently stimulated in your current environment?

God, no. I’m dying. I have always felt like a caged cheetah at work, despite changing jobs every 2-3 years, always in the pursuit of the ever-elusive challenge/stimulation. I am at constant risk of depression as a result, but do my best to stave it off by continuing to strive (taking classes, developing new skills, applying for stretch positions), even when my career seems hopeless, and by trying to put my eggs in other baskets. I am slowly coming to accept that work will probably never provide the challenge, stimulation or satisfaction that I so desperately need, and that I will need to satisfy many of my cravings to produce, create, give and do through hobbies and volunteer opportunities. Still, it sucks to have 40 hours of torturously dead time in my week.

I am also realizing that I can’t spend my whole career waiting for employers to mentor me (“I pay you, isn’t that enough?”), promote me, wake up to what I could do for them and take appropriate advantage of my potential. I have a long history of resenting my bosses for having such ridiculously low expectations of me and failing to appreciate my abilities, but I'm learning that that's my problem, not theirs, even if they're at fault. Again, it’s up to me alone to care for me and improve my crappy lot, but unfortunately the only real power I seem to have is to quit, which I do, over and over again. Changing jobs often does at least satisfy my need for novelty, but at the expense of developing expertise

3. Do you ever feel a bit odd?

Every minute of the work day. My coworkers, who by conventional measures are more successful than me—more happy, cheerful, content, confident and popular—often strike me as so vacuous and superficial that I have to filter and bite my tongue constantly. They seem to accept most things at face value--don’t question things or appreciate irony, and take any sort of critical thought as negativity. On the plus side, they are so far to one extreme that they make me proud to be a nerd. I’d rather be unhappy and unpopular than have a pleasantly shallow existence.

I also have to constantly dial back my standards and expectations. It feels like there’s a standard formula or adjustment I need to apply to my approach to most things to avoid scaring people off or making them uncomfortable. And yet, I still often fail to scale back far enough. On my first day back at work this week, I was called out in a meeting for accurately and appropriately using the word “subsumed” (“Is that really a word, or did you just make that up?”), bringing the entire discussion to an awkward, embarrassing halt. Sigh.

4. Do you share all of your thoughts with anyone?

I am now! 99% of the time, no, and the isolation and loneliness is killing me. I can’t even really talk to my husband, who is gifted, but not to the extreme that it makes you a social and emotional freak. I am learning to expect only so much of him—that no single person could ever truly understand me or be all things to me/that we’re all ultimately alone—which takes some of the pressure off of him, but also heightens my responsibility for finding others with whom I can relate.

I do have one exceptionally gifted friend from college who I can talk to, but she’s in another state. I get most of my comfort, support and nurturing from books, but of course, you can’t talk to them. Fortunately, I have recently joined an extremely quirky meetup group that I think might actually include my peeps and offer some true intellectual comradery. The first meeting I attended was so electric that I felt like I had been in solitary confinement for years and someone had just opened a window.

I also relate to almost everything posted above, especially the compulsive drive toward self-improvement and learning. Great thread!

I would give a limb for this. Seriously. I think it's what drew me to law. Unfortunately, I wanted the comradery of being around lawyers engaged in a good fight more than I wanted to practice law or live on the pittance that public interest attorneys make.

As a child, my family was ALWAYS telling me stuff like this. There were other outliers in my family, but I was definitely the most emotive. Now, I mostly keep my "excesses" to myself or allow myself to share in smaller doses with different people so as to not overwhelm any one person too much. Though the odd person on the bus thinks I'm a crazy lady! Thankfully, DH loves me exactly as I am, even if he doesn't always understand me.

This! Being in law, I'm in a fairly specialized field so it would be pretty tricky to start all over again. Without getting into too much detail, thankfully, I'm able to change jobs often anyway. It helps! But as with many others, I also have to find enriching experiences outside of work as well - new languages, instruments, voracious reading, volunteering opportunities, etc.

What kind of group? Some of us might want to seek out something similar! Though I do find that I can find little niches everywhere - people interested in languages, some who love theatre, etc. So it goes back to Dude's polyhedron analogy.

This feels strangely therapeutic to me! Thank you to all of you who have shared. Hopefully this thread could morph into an ongoing one somehow: This could be somewhere where we share some of the thoughts and feelings we can't necessarily share elsewhere.

I'm just going to go on the record and say that this was a terrific thread to initiate, and it's clearly resonating with the regulars here. Let's definitely keep the conversation flowing and make this a go-to resource for parents. The adult aspect of the discussion on the forum is nascent and would be exciting to explore!

Exactly. It's a source of constant frustration for me to see others and how far they fall short of their potential, be it emotional/relational/professional/ethical, etc. I just want to shake them and say, "I don't have to dilute myself just because you choose not to reach your potential." Mediocrity and apathy aren't the objective base on which reality rests. *shudders*

So yes, commiseration.


The time dimension makes it hard, too. (This is why I initiated the MBTI thread-- "NT" types are long-range thinkers, and I'm curious to see if they're over-represented in our population.) So many people are so myopic and don't see the forest for the trees. It's hard to communicate meaningfully, and feel connected to a common vision, when one side of the debate is looking at a drastically truncated time horizon.


Most work is totally stifling in its format. The idea of doing the same set of activities or thinking from the same perspective is so tiring. It seems many of us here are attracted to career paths that, ex ante, look like they provide variety (several here on this thread picked law, I opted for management consulting). Maybe that's the biggest lie our children face in choosing a canned career path--it entails a more limited scope of work than many gifted adults truly crave absent becoming entrepreneurs or mavericks in their field.

I chose management consulting because the larger firms seemingly provided a wide variety of engagements and required a steep learning curve at project outset. To some extent this is true, but systems-based thinkers quickly find the general model in the individual cases, and it's easy to feel like you're part of a white collar sausage factory pumping out the same boilerplate to every client. (Shhh! Trade secret!) Ugh. It's the same faceless corporate monotony in every client, just with different window dressing. I mean, how much am I really capable of caring about a 3 per cent aggregate cost saving in a company that has no appreciable impact on anything real to any person's life?

My ex was a lawyer, and I have many friends and family in law (mostly corporate), and they almost universally express similar frustrations to yours unless they get to take on cause-related issues close to their hearts or tackle novel legislation.



This!!! I also struggle with the corporate mentality of having to pay one's dues before achieving seniority, and attribute a lot of gifted adults checking out of their careers to management and incentive systems that poorly measure and reward divergent thought. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that we've all banged our heads against the wall of a less competent boss (or boss's boss, etc.) who we had objectively demonstrated we could out-perform early in our careers, but who we had to continue to answer to. It's maddening! Then we see our poor children in classrooms with mindless drone teachers who enforce equality because of a misplaced belief that "equal = fair", and it's obvious that is the early stage version of what we're experiencing.

On a second note, I think this aspect of lacking professional mentorship is particularly troubling for young gifted females. When I started my first professional job, I was 10-15 years younger than my peers, and constantly had to battle the image of being a young bimbo because I was attractive and young. There was one particularly egregious example where a senior exec made a comment about my invitation to participate on a news panel being based on my aesthetic, to which I replied that the invitation was extended to me sight-unseen and my physique was of little interest to people interested in X issue, for which I was a published and well-respected researcher. Again, I have a strong suspicion that most of the women here have had similar experiences.


My ex used to make similar observations all the time; that there's an optimal IQ range for self-delusion that shallow achievement = happiness. Couldn't agree more.


Ugh, yes! The "what does that word mean" in a professional setting is maddening! I had one partner I worked for previously ask me why I spoke the way I do, to which I answered, "I assume I'm speaking with an intelligent audience." Snarky, maybe, but if I'm extending someone the courtesy of using my brain, it's because I believe theirs can handle it. Maybe they could just try. I also get the "can you talk slower" request frequently, with the desired pace of some audiences being g l a c i a l. It feels like a Chandler Bing moment from Friends when he shouts at Joey, "Get there faster!!"

Now, I don't mind different abilities and paces. But when people actively complain and expect to be accommodated for laziness, that's on them, not me.


SO glad you've shared! Your ideas were insightful and proved to be great catalysts for my unintended-but-extensive soapbox rant. So thank you for that!

It's not surprising that a number of people on this forum seem to feel that way. By way of contrast, rather than being disappointed in others, I'm always second-guessing myself instead. My reaction to this might have something to do with my MBTI type. I am actually an ENFP-T, and it's a strong T. I guess the T stands for unsure of yourself, etc. And it fits with my thoughts on this subject: I always think I haven't contributed enough, haven't accomplished enough, am not advocating sufficiently for our DSs, etc.

As for others, I just constantly walk around wondering how amazing the world could be if we could somehow harness all of that lost potential. G/T or not, I am quite certain that every individual on this earth has untapped abilities. What would it be like if every individual could be assessed and then nurtured?

Or its corollary, "that word does not mean what you think it means." My organization is notorious for using vague and unhelpful terminology, then wondering why we're constantly talking past each other. It's almost as if we need an organization-to-English dictionary.

Example: I worked as a member of a small and highly-specialized team that decided to call itself "Technical Services." This one team was part of a larger IT organization filled with many people performing many roles, any one of which could be described as providing some variety of "technical services." So during a reorg, I became a strong advocate of our team adopting a name that was more specific to us and better encapsulated our actual role, and how that differed from other roles. I was well-satisfied by the results - one of which was that we stopped getting disruptive emails from non-technical folks seeking help with problems that had absolutely nothing to do with us.

Months later, another team that provides similar services on a very different platform gave themselves a name almost identical to ours. So now we get occasional calls from the folks in the operations center for problems with the other team's platforms at 2am.

I totally get this. I've done project management work in many different sectors and industries, and I'm always excited going in, because of the steep learning curve, but I am ultimately applying the same basic tools and techniques regardless of the project, and I tend to master all the new substantive knowledge I can suck out of a job within 6 months to a year, at which point I become restless again and start thinking about the next thing. It's not even a matter of the grass seeming greener on the other side of the hill...it's that I've eaten all the grass and am starving!


Uh huh. And "out-perform" is exactly it. Some bosses have been threatened by my ideas, but mainly, they seem threatened by my drive and energy. A lot of people really don't want to work very hard or get much done. In fact, the more they can "coast" the happier they are. I've never figured out how to coast or ride the clock (I go batty, really), and if I'm going to do something I want to do it efficiently and well, with high quality results. I'm ALL IN or not in at all. In my experience, most bosses hate that and see aiming for anything more than passable mediocrity as rocking the boat. So I try to do things just "good enough." It's frustrating, to say the least.

So as, apparently, one of the few -NF-s posting (along with RRD), I may have a somewhat different perspective on stimulating and rewarding work. It's not that I haven't experienced similar situations--yes, I do essentially the same tasks over and over again, and yes, I've had supervisors who required, shall we say, management from below, but I find my vocational stimulation in the uniqueness of the people involved. Granted, there are patterns and repeated profiles that I see among the learners with whom I work (not to mention the colleagues with whom I work), but each child is a different and whole individual, in a unique family system, which is endlessly fascinating to me. I also admit to entertaining myself (and responding to my internal motivations for bettering individual and organizational outcomes) by effecting systemic change through other people, with or without their awareness.

I've spent time in fields that should have, on paper, been intellectually stimulating in a more conventional sense, but found them to be insufficiently engaging on an emotional and relational level. My current profession provides a better balance. Another advantage of my professional role is that I am the only one of my kind in my building, which allows me to avoid a lot of the "outperformance" conflicts mentioned above. Actually, at this point, despite the myriad federal and state regulations entwined in my work, I am pretty free to do my job however I like, at the pace and intensity that is most compatible with my life needs at that particular moment.

In addition, I've never expected any one aspect (whether a task or a person) of my life to provide everything necessary. No one can be all things to another person; nor do I want my career to be my sole, or even principal, venue for self-development.

I should also mention (though I'm pretty sure this audience already knows this!) that parenting is quite a challenging task on many levels.

This post really resonated with me.

I read a bit. Some of the books get posted on Bostonian's thread books for adults or elsewhere. Some of the research and/or articles show up as links in various posts. A few things get passed along as a single nugget of wisdom in the thread Quotations that resonate with gifted people.

Volunteerism can be fulfilling. It keeps my eyes open to the realities of a broad range of circumstances and perspectives.

Agreed.

One company, known for ruthless negotiation, had a brief TV commercial spot created. While still in final phase editing, they renegotiated a lower price. This was mentioned jubilantly when they gathered employees together for a perfunctory social occasion victory dinner and screened the ad, whose final line was, "We want to be your penultimate consulting firm!"

Note: Penultimate means second-to-last. Possibly including this closing line was the ad company's response to being paid less than the amount originally agreed to; The ad company may have had the last laugh... as the shrewd negotiators evidently were not as strong in their vocabulary skills, but were quite proud to be "penultimate!"

Yep. I found the book The Peter Principle to describe this fairly well.

MsFriz, aquinas and Dude, have any of you ever checked out Paula Prober's "Your Rainforest Mind" blog? I have been reading some of her posts lately and they really resonate with me. Given your references to strong OEs, I thought you might also be interested. If you check it out, let me know what you think!

Here's an article that I think will be sure to resonate:

Ambient state of the Universe

I especially liked the axiomatic observation regarding the speed of meetings but it does have a positive side:

A meeting moves at the speed of the slowest mind in the room

I have read Paula Prober's book and even gave my sister a copy for Christmas, since she tends to suffer from imposter syndrome and doesn't see herself as gifted. Prober tries to avoid the loaded "g" word, so her stuff tends to go down easier with people who, for whatever reason, aren't comfortable with that label.

I think Paula Prober's stuff is most helpful when you're ready to throw in the towel and embrace mediocrity. When everyone around you is saying, for example, "Why can't you just accept what is instead of focusing on what ought to be?" Paula Prober is there to reassure you that there's nothing wrong with aiming higher, even if it makes the people around you very uncomfortable--and not because aiming higher is intrinsically better, but because wanting to do so is an intrinsic part of your personality. She gives you permission to be yourself in situations where most people would try to explain why and how you need to be somebody else.

YES to meetings going at the speed of the slowest person in the room. Not just meetings but entire projects. And not just projects but the entire organizational change process. I feel like I'm swimming in molasses most days, or revving my engine in neutral. I suppose that's why I hate group work so much. It's not that I don't like working with people, it's just that I always seem to end up stifled and underutilized, never "working at the top of my license," as they say, because I'm constantly holding myself back.

In my office, I also frequently get tapped to consult with or mentor colleagues, including my direct supervisors, and yet there's no quid pro quo. I'm always left wondering, when do I get to develop MY skills? Who is going to mentor me?

It's like I'm still in the second grade, where, after my mom declined a grade skip for all the wrong reasons, my teacher paired me up with the slowest person in the room, so I could help her with her work after I had finished mine. That was literally decades ago, and yet I find myself reliving the same scenario on a daily basis to this day!

I think the parallels between being a gifted child in a "no child left behind" classroom and a gifted adult in a lowest-common-denominator office setting are sorely unappreciated. I also believe that how a child experiences and deals with these issues in a classroom setting is highly predictive of how they're going to function in the work world (not especially well in my case).

I regularly do other people's work because it's the only way I can get mine done. One particular group is so notorious for incompetence that I have to send them exact command syntax, because while they have no idea what they're doing, I am not authorized to do it for them. So, they're professional sock puppets.

I can't decide if my school district's standards have really gone massively downhill since I was a kid or what, because my parents would never have dreamed of advocating for me the way I feel like I have to advocate for my kids. And yet still the programming seems so hopelessly inadequate for DD12. Then again I suffer from some pretty intense imposter syndrome sometimes, perhaps because I didn't have to work very hard at school at any level.

Most likely, yes. When reviewing a school's "alignment" to common core standards, many have found that the curriculum was being dumbed down in the process... the kids were learning to develop a smaller academic toolkit than kids used to learn:
- If a topic moved UP to a higher grade, the curriculum was being dumbed down.
- If a topic disappeared (such as phonics*, cursive, roman numerals), the curriculum was being dumbed down.
- If a topic moved DOWN to a lower grade, it was possible that the curriculum was becoming more rigorous... however this depends in part on the assessment measures and "teaching to the test." Kids may now be considered "proficient" or even "advanced" while demonstrating much less knowledge than in the past.

It may be wise to stockpile good books while the opportunity still exists to do so.

*Note: Phonics is included as part of Common Core, however some schools have dropped phonics. Some of these schools dropped phonics specifically when aligning to common core.

Did they ever work it out? Words are beautiful yet we only use a small proportion of them. I have been criticised for using too many big words and had people complain they can't understand me. Why is this a fault with me rather than the other person?

Many of us have had this experience.
1) Your strength in vocabulary may highlight another's weakness in that area.
2) This is related to another area of strength which many of us may struggle with: Know your audience.
Years of professional experience with individuals having different knowledge bases, including English Language Learners, have gotten some us into a habit of speaking/writing in a thesaurus-like manner... often using two or three different words or phrases in one sentence to define, describe, and communicate the same idea. This casts a wider net for an audience to potentially catch and adopt an idea.

Do any of you play HQ trivia? On weekdays it typically consists of 12 questions. The game show host frequently announces the 11th question as the penultimate question. HQ has an audience which enjoys mental stimulation including vocabulary words which may be infrequently used.

ETA: Related post (May 2019)

Oh, if it's worse than it used to be, I doubt it's because of the common core. It's because of the demographics of who lives here now. This used to be a bedroom community for lots of aerospace engineers.

I have learnt to choose my words to suit the audience - i wasn't so good at it in my teens though. Now i work with a lot of people who know words i don't which is wonderful.

I read a tip somewhere and signed up to receive the Merriam-Webster word of the day by e-mail... still enjoying it!

I definitely have this verbal habit as well.

Common Core and demographics are NOT unrelated. Although the common core website (corestandards.org) has undergone many changes and much of the original content has been retired, many webpages and PDF files which were previously part of the corestandards.org website can still be found using the Way Back Machine (internet archive). This provides an accurate history of documents, and transparency into the Common Core.

Here we see changing demographics mentioned as a driver or motivating force for the creation of Common Core. We also see the seeds being sown for equal outcomes (as opposed to equal opportunities). Unfortunately, closing achievement gaps and enforcing equal outcomes tends to cap the growth of students at the top.

You may wish to download and save the PDF file and read the whole report. At only 52 pages, it is a manageable read.

This old post on contents of the Common Core website may also be of interest.

To remain on-topic: Hopefully parents are doing better by understanding the realities of forces currently in play and impacting gifted education in the USA... and worldwide.