I Thought I Was Stupid
I mistook being confused for being incapable.
I thought I was stupid.
Looking back...
I wasn’t.
I just kept mistaking being confused for being incapable.
It took me years to realize why.
When I was five years old
I’m bored in class, everyone else is playing.
I take a piece of paper
And I write every number from 1 to 509 by hand.
My teacher had been teaching kindergarten for 24 years.
She suddenly started shouting.
I burst into tears.
I thought I had done something wrong.
…
My mother tells me years later, that I didn’t do anything wrong.
The teacher was just so surprised by what I did.
She had been teaching for 24 years and had never seen a child like me.
So how did I end up believing I was stupid?
I’m trying to study for a test…
But just like every other test I’ve studied for, I can’t concentrate.
I can’t just focus for 15 minutes on this subject.
I think to myself that I’m just too stupid or lazy for this.
But my mother keeps saying:
You’re so smart, Alex.
She’s wrong.
At school, every time were doing the test in class.
I believe that the smartest kids finished the fastest.
One student puts his pencil down.
Then another.
Then another.
I’m only halfway through.
How are they already finished?
I always try to do the test until time is really up.
Am I just slow?
Why can’t I just be smart and quick?
Why is it hard to memorize things for school.
The smartest kids in class are just smarter than me.
My mother is trying to sleep…
She hears a piece of music playing downstairs.
She thinks she’s dreaming, she puts on her bath robe and walks downstairs…
There, she sees the same kid playing the piano, 7 hours later after coming home.
She is complimenting me,
Wow Alex, you’re still learning?!
I’m surprised myself.
I had decided to learn this piano piece for school, River Flows in You.
I wanted to get a better grade in music, and I found out I really loved to play the piano.
I post the video on Facebook, and the teacher reacts to it.
I get an A in music.
Wait...
I couldn’t study for fifteen minutes at school.
But I just spent seven hours learning one song without anyone forcing me.
…
Maybe I wasn’t incapable of learning.
Maybe I’d only discovered something I actually wanted to learn for once.
After school, I decide to start a YouTube gaming channel.
I was tired of school and wanted to take a year off.
I would wake up thinking about thumbnails.
I’d fall asleep listening to YouTube advice.
14-hour days didn’t feel difficult.
Nobody had to tell me to study anymore.
I couldn’t stop.
Now people were asking me questions and wanted to know from me about YouTube.
Maybe I can focus, and be intelligent and knowledgeable about something.
Then it happened again.
Books.
Psychology.
Piano.
Writing.
Every year I learnt faster than the year before.
Looking back, I wasn’t stupid.
I had mistaken one environment for my entire potential.
School taught me how well I could perform in school.
I turned that into a judgment about who I was.
Life taught me something different.
The things I thought proved I was stupid...
were never proof at all.
Maybe you aren’t stupid either.
Maybe you’ve spent years confusing one environment...
with your entire potential.
I thought school was measuring my intelligence.
Looking back...
It was only measuring one small part of who I could become.