Underachievers

My guess is that ILX is littered with them.

I have been one most of my life. I recently came across this:

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Motivated_Underachiever

which I think is interesting, and probably right. Basic argument -- the underachiever is not "bored" or "unmotivated" -- he actively wants to avoid success because of dependency and fear of responsibility and commitment.

Of course the definition of "underachiever" can get blurry where so many parents believe their "gifted" children are not getting the grades they are capable of.

Don't a lot of people have a misunderstanding of what the word "underachiever" means? Of course, true underacheivers know exactly what it means.

which I think is interesting, and probably right. Basic argument -- the underachiever is not "bored" or "unmotivated" -- he actively wants to avoid success because of dependency and fear of responsibility and commitment.

This is one of those things that's depressing to read because it so accurately describes myself.

Yeah, it is depressing, especially cuz "dependency" doesn't sound as cool as you probably like to believe you are.

(meaning me too -- not a personal shot at you Rev)

Understood.

Don't misunderestimate The Reverend, Hurting.

As a 54 year old school bus driver who dresses like a hobo, whose IQ and vocabulary each measured well into the 99th percentile back when he was still being measured for such things, I think I can categorically claim the "underachiever" label.

And yet... and yet... I am more or less a happy person and well contented with my choices in life. Which I decided a long time ago was really more to the point than whatever it is that most achievers achieve. I used my intelligence, such as it was, to figure out that becoming a happy person was a radical and highly satisfying goal. Then I used my intelligence to aid me in that pursuit.

I don't need no steenking merit badge.

Friend of mine down here who is a paralegal making good money but who has not yet earned a BA wondered once why my sis and I, both degree holders from the UC, were seemingly so content with our jobs and not earning our full capability from our degrees and etc. Having heard more times than I can count about the horribleness in the office of said person's job and all the backstabbing and so forth going on, I rather think both my sis and I did better on the 'content with life' scale.

I come from a proud tradition of underachievers. My mom started college at 15 and was fluent in French. Never had a full-time job in her life, and now with copious amounts of childless free time, her empty nest lifestyle is about as interesting as ... an episode of Empty Nest. My uncle graduated top of his class in engineering at MIT, had tons of opportunities to make it rich, but he lives an admirably humble lifestyle; his long-term SO is a wealthy heiress worth over 70 million, and he refuses to marry her for that reason. The list goes on and on.

I'm proudly carrying the torch, and what a brilliant flame it is. You look back and think, "wait a second, if I actually made an effort, I'd be doing ok!" Escapism, kiddultism, fear of failure, and general laziness seem like common themes. Also add strings of failed friendships and relationships in there, too. Being a loser rules.

anyone who would call themselves an "underachiever" is probably severely overestimating their potential

Sometimes, I'm sure. I think the people who do acknowledge that they're underachievers, though, have actual sources for their assumption ... like, I never studied for the SATs, but when I took them I got like, 99.999999999th percentile. Look at me now, you're dripping with envy.

no, that's apple butter

Oh yeah, my oldest brother's another one; pure genius this kid, aced everything at a touch, great people skills, too. Now he's in his thirties and drives a snow plow, despite having had amazing opportunities. He seems happy, though.... at least I hope he is.

For some reason I don't think you're the best judge of "great people skills".

anyone who would call themselves an "underachiever" is probably severely overestimating their potential

― congratulations (n/a), Friday, January 16, 2009 7:23 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

I don't know -- in college I repeatedly failed classes for violating attendance policies or simply not turning in work. I'm not trying to say I'd be in Obama's cabinet by now if I'd only applied myself, just that I tend to screw up so as to avoid having expectations on me.

i'm just saying that if someone never lives up to their supposed potential, then that potential is pretty meaningless; that maybe they aren't underachieving, they're achieving exactly what they're capable of

For some reason I don't think you're the best judge of "great people skills".

― Alex in SF, Friday, January 16, 2009 7:37 PM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark

You're just saying that because I called your beloved city a "pleated khaki paradise". Nothing wrong with that you know, and I hear you guys have really good Chinese food over there.

As far as school goes, yeah, in highschool I nearly failed everything, but killed the SATs and skipped grades in private school. I only ever got my shit together when I got a girlfriend in college.

Friends have been "motivated underachievers", too... some reformed, some not. My closest friend failed out of highschool--a true 0.0 GPA. She's now getting a Ph.D. in some science thing at some Ivy League school. Another old friend cleaned up his act and he's an Ivy Leaguer. A more recent friend is just a slacky as me and will probably end up doing "ground level" public interest law, which I'll be lucky to do. In most cases a similar behavioral strand exists: being really shitty at maintaining healthy relationships. My other friends avoided this by getting married really young.

That's kind of circular and ignores the plain meaning of the word "potential

(xpost)

eh i think nick is right.

Two envoys from the Kingdom of Chu approached Chuang Tzu while he was fishing and asked him to come and advise the King.

Chuang Tzu said: "I have heard of a tortoise which lived for 3,000 years, and is now kept in a box in the palace and worshipped. Where do you think the tortoise would rather be, dead in a box but worshipped, or crawling around in the mud?"

The envoys said, "The tortoise would rather be crawling around in the mud."

Chuang Tzu replied, "I would rather stay by the river and fish".

So the moral is that Chang Tzu was narcissistic and socially inept?

Chang Tzu = Burt Stanton

um well maybe you can really only identify potential in retrospect, like if someone eventually "made good" or whatever, but unfulfilled potential is just nothing. like i could say i have the potential to be the next michael jordan but that's just words

Sure.

I guess I'm less talking about people who never wind up doing the "great" things everyone (probably unrealistically) thought they would do. I just mean people who, through acts or failures that they could presumably control, consistently prevent themselves from advancing into better positions they actually could technically handle.

OTOH the whole idea is based on an assumption that it is best to reach the highest position you are technically capable of, that it is not better to be a bus driver, stay by the river and fish, etc. Sometimes I think it is.

I think it's time to stop theorizing "potential" as if it had one direction, one "ought" attached to it. The Type A personality doctors and lawyers and successes have *failed* to express their potential to be mystics, hobos, slackers, and drunks. The saints have *failed* to be the corporate schmoes. Potentiality is the virtual, and the virtual is, in the phrase of Brian Massumi, "real but not actual"- that is, at any moment, there is a real potential for changes to the state of things in everyone's life, in all our lives, right now, at this moment, and this potentiality-for-change is REAL. Right now. Some of these potentialities as they are expressed get tracked and rated as "up" or "down" on some kind of values/lifestyle rating system, but that's way too simple as a way to think potentiality as such. So maybe the whole notion is not worth worrying about in this way, or needs to be supplemented by something more supple, more honest, more open.

This is Massumi on Simondon's notion of "the emergent: "There is a kind of bubbling of structuration in a turbulent soup of regions of swirling potential. The regions are separated from each other by dynamic thresholds rather than by boundaries." (Parables for the Virtual, p. 34) He's talking about atoms, but it offers some useful models for people and their definitions of success, I think.

There is also an assumption that most people get to the highest position they are technically capable of based on merit, which I can tell you is anything but accurate in my experience.

Chang Dong makes a good point with a nice joke. I'd be honored to be him.

Anyway, I understand where you're coming from, n/a--the fear of failure is what drives many underachievers, their belief being "if I don't try to achieve, no one will know what I'm capable of achieving, and I don't have to live up to the failure of not being able to achieve what people thought I could."

The difference here, though, is we're talking about situations where potential has been shown, but no effort was ever made to use that demonstrated potential; not a case for infinite potential based on some or no ability. It's not like your guidance counselors would go up to Joe Bob 1 Tooth and say, "stop being an underachiever and get serious!!!" I think I went to at least 20 underachiever meetings in high school. I've certainly made something of myself.

The problem is: you realize where your hard work gets you. 99% of the time it's a good position of responsibility making an OK salary working 40-60 hours of the same thing every day. every day. every day.. and it's like, wait, that's it? Only the .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% ever get those really cool jobs, so sometimes it feels futile to make an effort, and you use your abilities to just coast by.

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Cankles, through those handful of ASCII characters you have shown us a truth that cannot be captured even by a million words.

classic burt_stanton on this thread.

"Chang Dong".

There is also an assumption that most people get to the highest position they are technically capable of based on merit, which I can tell you is anything but accurate in my experience.

http://blog.kir.com/archives/Peter%20Principle.jpg

You can work your ass off and be the best of what you do, and still end up a total shlump. That's why it's probably best not to place too much happiness in this career thing.

underachievers generally tend to underestimate the importance of effort in the success equation - like im smart an talented if i could just get the lil ol motivation part sorted id be good - when really effort is by far the most important factor in achievement - at least out of those you can control

thing is, i really want to be rich and successful. i remember as a kid riding my bike down by the posh houses and wanting to own one one day. i just don't have any talents that would make any serious money. i want cash, hot women, flash cars, designer clothes... i'm shallow.

I have put mountain-moving amounts of effort into many aspects of my life, but not those which tend to ignite a career. I am, as every boss I have worked under can attest, a damn good worker, but nurturing a career never held much interest for me. As for responsibility, I may not revel in it, but I have accepted quite a lot of it. I haven't avoided it or been lazy.

By way of contrast, a friend of mine is an engineer, a PhD. and has reached a fairly high position in a multi-billion dollar company. The CEO interviewed him for his current job. He was much happier as the project leader of a small, specialized analysis group, because he got to actually design and write whizzy code that accomplished things he knew had value. Now he travels a lot (he hates it), is a high level manager (he despises it) and hardly ever gets to write code (which he is really brilliant at).

He does earn an impressive paycheck. He makes this sacrifice in order to send his much-loved, very brilliant daughter to Stanford U. where she is scorching the eyelashes off her profs with her ability. This gratifies him and helps to ease his weary mind.

Success should be a concept we get to define for ourselves. In my own worldview, I am a rip-roaring success.

Of course, your poor friend has to fear that she will eventually end up in his boat promoted into a spot he doesn't want to be at, and the cycle begins anew. (Only joking...kinda.)

(Should be 'into a spot SHE doesn't want' etc.)

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― ﾞ（ﾟ､ ｡ ７ (cankles), Friday, January 16, 2009 7:08 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

))>><<((

how about really being an underachiever when other folks think that you are an achiever?!?

You can work your ass off and be the best of what you do, and still end up a total shlump. That's why it's probably best not to place too much happiness in this career thing.

absolutely true ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/0b/HouseGregoryHouse.png/250px-HouseGregoryHouse.png

http://www.hadick.com/images/ProudParentUnderachieverFS.png

http://talentdevelop.com/images/BartUnder.jpg

should alcoholics be layers?

Thanks for starting a thread about me Hurtz.