Ok it's like I feel like an insect.I don't know if I really was or wasn't gifted as a child.I'm smarter than most my peers, but I don't really feel exceptional and YET from a young age everyone - parents, teachers, peers kept telling me that I was an absolute genius, gifted, etc.They kept saying that I'm gonna be great, that I'm a sponge that absorbs information, that I'm a living computer?!And yet I never had any achievements, there was never a reason for them to be impressed.I have 0 achievements.But all this changed me in a bad way.It's like I assumed I'm smart and destined to be successful, so I never put any effort in anything.By the age of 19 I couldn't solve a quadratic equation.I only speak 3 languages(unlike actual prodigies who speak 20-40).But my ego is damaged from the childhood of falsely being called a genius...and now I feel like I'm being crushed every time I read about an actual prodigy.Like this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis

Reading about this guy I have the impression that compared to him the guy from the movie "Limitless" is a retard...and compared to the guy in the movie "Limitless" I am a retard...yeah it's not a really good feeling.It's like I was lied to.I mean when I think about it it's almost INSANE.Every day all sorts of people would compliment me on my intelligence and I had NO achievements whatsoever.No skills, no nothing.My only skill is that I have supreme cognitive empathy - I can almost read peoples minds by the smallest signs of body language, change of tone or facial expressions that most people wouldn't even recognize.I've always had this skill.But it's pretty much useless.The only intelligence type I respect is the mathematical/logical one and it's the one I'm lacking in.I learned all of high school math in 3 weeks(which Sidis would have learned in 1 day) and vector calculus in about 30 hours(which he would learn just by knowing the basics of calculus and vectors and deriving the rest on his own) in order to get into a university with programming and here's what I noticed there:

A lot of people who study something related to tech have the tendency to base their worth on their intellectual abilities and react negatively when proven inferior.

How do you guys feel about this?

First, knowing 3 languages is not a bad achievement.

Second, there's always someone better.

Well not always, but for 99.99999% of the population, you will find someone better than you at whatever it is you.

If you constantly compare yourself to others, you will spend your life depressed and unhappy.

Instead, use them as an inspiration, a goal to strive towards, while at the same time accepting that there are some things you will just never be able to do. That's no reason not to try anyway.

Time for some bad news. Your parents, teachers and peers have messed up your world view. They have skewed your work ethic towards tasks you find easy.

Hard work and perseverance are more important than talent. There's every chance you're not a genius, but merely above average. Deal with it.

And now I will reveal how you get good at whatever it is you really want to do....

Work at it.

Practice till your fingers bleed. Write code until you can't even think straight. It takes 10000 hours to master a skill.

Best get started.

Time for some bad news. Your parents, teachers and peers have messed up your world view. They have skewed your work ethic towards tasks you find easy.
Hard work and perseverance are more important than talent.

Agreed. I had a similar thing happen to me with high-school. I received the top result in the entrance exam and so was pretty much left to do as I pleased. I pretty much memorized the entire years worth of text books in the first month or so and never bothered studying after that. Work I didn't like I simply didn't do and the teachers didn't care because I was getting better results than the other students in my class.

This worked out well for high-school, and I managed to get through the first year of university in the same manner, and then second year came along. Their was simply far too much course material for me to memorize and their were constant assessments that HAD to be done. I had no idea how to study, and no experience at making myself sit down and work at something on demand. Needless to say I failed that year very badly.

So no matter how smart you are, eventually you're going to know how to work for things and if you don't learn that skill when you're young enough to, it can have severe consequences.

Being really good at reading body language is supposedly good for playing poker, being a psychotherapist, and/or being a pick-up artist. If you can imitate it as well as read it, that's great for acting; if you can draw it, that's great for drawing portraits and comics.

I was in a bit similar situation (I was only considered very-very talented, but not a genius), plus I also had the feeling that I have "supreme empathy" and I thought I'm very good at understanding correlations in the world.

The first belief crushed quite early, at about the age of 12-13, which leaded to a 2-3 year of feeling an actual retard, who was lied not to be one (this caused a pretty strong anxiety those years).

The second belief crushed at the age of 24, as a result of intense foruming and some events that made me rethink my life. For the first time I did the rethinking methodically, which resulted in the discovery that I'm actually not good at all at empathy and understanding correlations in the world.

The third belief that followed me all of my life was that I was very talented at creating complex systems, like programs or machines (I graduated as a mechanical engineer, machine constructor). After some work in the engineering industry, and building my own Lego Technic creations, I realised this was also false.

So pretty much everything points to me being your average fuckin Joe. But fortunately, I'm getting over it, though they were pretty rough discoveries in a small time-frame (the 2nd and 3rd belief crushing).

So all I can say is thins: try to stop thinking about it, and don't pay much attention and importance/significance of your thoughts about anything.

-Captain Obvious

The only intelligence type I respect is the mathematical/logical one and it's the one I'm lacking in

I find extremely disturbing that you claim those abilities and then have a so closed mind about intelligence. I think your main problem might be self-confidence but I'm rather sure you shouldn't be posting there. Consider talking to a specialist.

The only intelligence type I respect is the mathematical/logical one and it's the one I'm lacking in

I find extremely disturbing that you claim those abilities and then have a so closed mind about intelligence. I think your main problem might be self-confidence but I'm rather sure you shouldn't be posting there. Consider talking to a specialist.

yeah what I meant was that basically this is the stereotypical "smart guy" type of intelligence and it makes me the most agitated when I don't excel in it xD thanks to everyone for sharing their similar experiences, at least if I ever have children I'll know not to over-praise them like this

Funnily enough, my early experiences were similar. Not called a "genius", of course, but parents, extended family, friends, teachers, all insisted that I was surely extremely intelligent. I was able to read books(like greek mythology, for young readers of course) & comics since I was 4, though I think that's not really rare at all...anyway, recently my cousin, who is 6 years older, told me a story I didn't know about: When I was in the 4th grade, she took an essay I had written for school and presented it to her highschool teacher, asking him for his opinion(without telling him who wrote it, or so she claims at least)...and she says that he stated the essay certainly seemed like it was written by someone at the last years of highschool (note: highschool("gymnasium") in Greece is from 12-15 years old, 15-18 is typically called differently). So yes, I kept hearing that I was very intelligent by family, friends(or friends of my parents) and teachers.

In any case, this year I celebrated my 31 years of existence on this planet, and it's absolutely certain that nobody can say I have achieved anything that would put me in the..."extremely intelligent" category. It is possible that parents/teachers were just overly impressed by the fact that I started reading/writing, for whatever reason, in a somewhat earlier age than most of my peers, that in turn gave me an initial head start, and they just overestimated the whole thing. I don't believe I'm stupid, but certainly not especially gifted either; like most people I'm just around the average. Actually, joining GDNet was quite an..."enlighting" experience, so to speak, as I was exposed for the first time to lots of young people my age, or even younger, who were clearly much, much more intelligent. And yes, it was quite disheartening to suddenly discover you're not as..."special" as you've been told, but eventually it's for the best. I really do think parents should avoid overly praising their offsprings about such things; as other posters have said here, even if the child is indeed gifted(and perhaps, *especially* if he/she is gifted), what matters is for them to understand that it's all about the work they'll do.

@Sock5 When you mentioned reading about somebody who you want to be like making you feel worse, it sounded familiar. It's actually more common (in my society) to worry about looks, wanting to look more like the people in magazines. I find your problem very similar, although I don't know if it has a name other than envy. By focusing on someone else, or even watching a fitness video while trying to work out, the person watching can feel bad about how they look although they continue to work on this goal.

From the description you gave you're an empathetic intelligent person, the type of cool calculating intelligence you respect is on the low empathy side of the spectrum. It will be much healthier to accept yourself for who you are. It's quite impossible to maintain mental health and trying to be what you are not.

I'll reference a TV show. "Malcolm in the Middle" made a similar point, the prodigy ended up as a [spolier] not a very flattering job to have at the end because nobody around him gave any direction, and eventually he just took whatever he was given. What you should understand is that you are the only one with a right to tell yourself what to do; always think about how you can achieve what you want in terms of what you know of your ability now.

Being able to nearly read people like books is a good hidden talent. Can you get along with people you just met? There are many organizations that need leadership, just as an example. This is a constructive way to use such ability, unlike mentalists and pick up artists who just want to show off they can convince people do do anything.

My mom taught me how to be really effort full to achieve good results as a kid. Shed beat the crap out of me if I didnt get good results. Scary lady.

When I was a kid it was terrible having to study so much, but growing up I realized that most ppl are really lazy, and that it worth a lot. So the best thing about all that wasnt really what I learned by studying so much, but learning to study so much when you need.

Today theres internet, any ppl can learn how to do anything, but if you dont know how to learn (or what youd like to do), you will not get anywhere..