Please Be Dumb and Just Try

Old Friends and the New Me

I met my old friend last Sunday at his cafe. I stayed at his place for the night. I brought my books with me to read during the stay. He kept mocking me for being pretentious. I didn’t respond but just kept reading my book while he was watching funny videos which I’m not interested in.

I feel proud. Knowing that I was at peace when he was judging me for who I am not. Knowing that we are different but just let him be him and me being me. It doesn’t matter to me how he thinks or says, just because I know what I’m doing, and no one can stop me from doing what I do. I know my goals and my books are helping me to achieve it.

But, it’s easier said than done.

I remember when I was a teenager, I would want to read but not for the sake of gaining knowledge but just to appear in a certain way. I wasn’t fully faking it, I do want knowledge. But I did care about how others thought of me.

Ironically, “fake it till you make it” is somehow true in this book reading situation. It is a habit that you build over time. You can only build it when you have a book accessible all the time. By looking at it long enough, you will be reading it eventually.

So, take your own pace.

Being Smart

I was told many times that I’m smart. I believed so. But over the years I changed the degrees and angles of how I see it.

I had never taken the time to figure out what exactly in me that they called smart. Was it high IQ, EQ, or was it something else? No one was there to further elaborate. Though, arguably it should be my responsibility to figure this out.

“Being smart and happiness doesn’t go hand in hand” - that was my belief throughout my teenage years. I thought like that because I was stuck. “I’m intelligent and yet here I am”. I felt like I’m not fitting into society because of how I grew up, how the environment is limiting in what I can do.

Luckily, I’ve never had the thought of that there’s anything I can’t do. My logic is simple - if someone else can do it, I can do it. Of course, only to a certain physical degree. But generally, it’s true, at least to me. Growing up with this mindset seems positive on the surface yet actually drags me down.

I favoured ideas but underestimated the efforts in doing anything. I was only able to see it clearly, when I was in my mid twenties. That’s when I picked up piano playing - I was there to challenge myself. If I’m the all so smart person that I think I am, why not pick something that’s really difficult and see what I can do about it.

And I was right, I am smart. Piano playing and music in general wasn’t hard. But the discipline to practice it daily over and over again to make your playing to sound as good as possible as you can? That’s hard, even for a smart individual.

Arrogance

Sandra was my vocational diploma teacher who taught “Business English” in my class. I’ve always thought that’s primary school level English but I didn’t say anything about it because I know the class I was in has all kinds of people from different backgrounds.

Years later, I met her in Taiwan while I was traveling by coincidence. I came up to her and said hello because she’s actually one of the teachers I knew who has a heart in teaching. She said she remembered me, and that I was arrogant, but I seemed better now. Imagine the first thing you heard from someone you know years ago was that “Oh I remember you, you were arrogant.” Haha. I wasn’t expecting that, but I wasn’t surprised either.

So, even for things you didn’t say, they know.

Ideas are Cheap

This is a well-known phrase in the business world. A lot of people have great ideas, but most of them never take any action. That’s the true differentiator between successful people and “smart” people.

Being smart or having great ideas, is not a tangible asset, because you can’t really measure it. On the other hand, achievements can. For example, you passed the Japanese N5 exam, or you have acquired the LCCI Bookkeeping certificate, or you can play Chopin Impromptu beautifully. They are factual. They are obvious. They are functional.

To me, thinking smart is like all talk but no action. It’s a smart and lazy getaway for procrastinators to think all they want instead of taking any action. It’s cowardice in a way, because they fear failure. Thinking smart and appearing to be know-it-all protects them from being wrong, or being hurt.

Interesting enough, even a little child is brave enough to run after they fell. Somehow, when the environment has changed, we forget to apply the same simple logic to achieve anything in life.

So, please be dumb and just try.

The Path Forward

Staying true to yourself isn’t easy. But first you have to know yourself well enough to evaluate yourself fairly. And don’t underestimate anything you haven’t done yourself. Let alone judging or forming any opinion about them. Learn to find what you don’t know about instead of focusing on what you already know.

What we call imposter syndrome often feeds on caring too much about how others think of you. At one point, if you are ‘arrogant’ enough to form a firm understanding of yourself, that’s when you can really grow - in your own way.

There are no impostors to start with if you can just stop comparing yourself to the others. Just do what you want, focus solely on those things, and improve them consistently.

Time will show your growth.

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