Andy’s Reviews > Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement > Status Update

I think what other people like me need to know is that being smart ain’t that special.

Being gifted is not that rare: it’s 1% of the population.
If you put yourself into a challenging environment, you’ve already narrowed the pool of people down to the top 10%, top 5% of society, so now 10% or 20% of the people are gifted.
You only feel special because your surroundings are shitty (and vise versa).

I feel so bad for the guy writing this book. He’s like a guardian to a mentally retarded child, patiently catering to idiotic questions (“What if I’m too lazy to change?”), except they’re an ugly adult and they aren’t retarded, just cursed with an IQ too high for them to manage (which we can argue in effect the same thing).