When I was eighteen, I joined MENSA, because that’s exactly the kind of thing an eighteen-year-old who joins MENSA would do. I lasted a year. Long enough to confirm what I already suspected: MENSA is less of a genius society and more of a self-congratulation echo chamber where people who peaked in standardized testing gather to be impressed with themselves. It was weird.
Anyway, when I applied, they mailed me an IQ test—an at-home, open-book final for the concept of intelligence itself. I scored 158. When I took the monitored version in London, I scored 159, which probably means I did a little worse under pressure, but still better than most people’s hopes and dreams.
The thing is, nothing has ever felt particularly hard for me. Not school, not university, not work. I picked up an English degree and a law degree with about as much effort as it takes to order a pizza. My memory is good. I spot patterns before other people even know they exist. That’s basically the cheat code to an IQ test right there.
I also get bored. Fast.
And that’s the real problem. Not the boredom itself, but the side effect of never developing any sense of urgency about anything. People assume I work hard because the outcome looks like effort. But the truth is, I barely try. I never had to. I learned early on that letting people believe I struggled made life easier, because society finds hard work noble, but coasting on raw ability? That just pisses people off.
So here I am. Fifty years old. Married for twenty. Three great kids. Life isn’t a train wreck, but it’s not exactly a bullet train either. I’ve made good money in sales—a career I fell into, like slipping on a banana peel—but it doesn’t mean anything to me. No professional pride, no sense of purpose, just a job that exists because I need to exist.
And here’s where the high-IQ paradox kicks in: when you’re young, intelligence is a currency. You get praised for it. Rewarded. But then you grow up, and nobody cares how fast you learn or how easily you grasp complex ideas. They care about what you do with it. And if you don’t do much, if you coast, if you let less “gifted” but harder-working people lap you, that little number that once made you feel special turns into a constant, gnawing reminder that you wasted your potential.
This is why so many people who underachieve can’t shut the hell up about how smart they are. We were conditioned to expect applause for existing, and when it stops, we start handing out our own. The ones who lack social intelligence make a habit of it, shoehorning their IQ into every conversation, as if the rest of the world is obligated to care.
But the truth is, the world doesn’t belong to the smart. It belongs to the people who work. And that’s a lesson I wish I’d learned before I wasted decades proving how little effort I could get away with.