If you're born gifted, life is handed to you on a silver platter, right?
Not according to several Reddit users who answered the question, "[For those] labeled as gifted children, do you think the label harmed you, or helped you?"
Most said that the "free passes" and special treatment given in school and beyond are not worth the price of having above-average IQ. In fact, any complacency they enjoyed during their early years ended up hurting them later in life.
"I often feel like a huge failure and I can't look at my transcript without crying," writes one user. "I still consider myself extremely intelligent and capable but I can't push myself to do the work required to make straight As. Overall it's forced me to set an unreasonably high standard for myself."
We've pulled together some of the most interesting comments from the thread about why it's horrible to grow up gifted.
From an early age, you believe it's you vs. the world.
"You're suddenly looking around at the world and realizing that you're supposed to have some crazy work ethic at everything because YOU'RE gifted and THEY aren't. More is expected of YOU than THEM because of the big giant brain that YOU were given that THEY weren't. See a pattern there? There's this exclusivity complex there where it's an 'Us vs. Them' mentality."
Source: Reddit
You develop a superiority complex.
"When you've been told all your life that you're the smartest person in the room, you don't take orders from others very well, especially those who you don't find very bright (which, sadly, is most people)."
And that makes you arrogant.
"Harmed me. Made me an arrogant self-righteous prick, because I was taught for years that my classmates and I were smarter than all the rest of the school. I'm still trying to undo all that."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider