Musings on Intelligence Quotients

I have always understood that IQ tests were designed to test your intelligence level by comparing your knowledge and reasoning skills against other test-takers who were your same age. Thus, you could be a genius at age 4, but if you learned nothing else, you would gradually come to be on the same level as everyone else, eventually.

I was thinking about intelligence quotients because I was trying to decide how much I have really been learning, recently. There are things that I do that are good for me, and there are areas where I feel like I am a complete slacker. Some areas I work on some of the time, and conveniently forget at other times. These don't all relate to knowledge per se, but they happen to be in areas that I think are important. How do I treat people? Am I better at seeing their point of view than I was a year ago? Do I give more service? Am I actively learning, or am I just coasting along now that school is over? My worry was, even though I might have been smart enough to graduate from college, am I doing anything about that now? Am I interested in academics, or do I just dabble? This also applies to my physical health--am I helping myself along?

I was looking on the internet and I stumbled across this article: http://wilderdom.com/intelligence/WhyIntelligentPeopleFail.html. The title is "Why Intelligent People Fail." The reasons listed are as follows:

• lack of motivation
• lack of impulse control
• lack of perseverance
• fear of failure
• procrastination
• inability to delay gratification
• too little/too much self-confidence

I thought that was very interesting. I happen to know several people who I think might fall into this category. I believe these people to be very intelligent, and yet I think they are falling prey to one or more of the above traps. I think that if I'm honest with myself, some of these could apply to me--I might be a bit more bit lazy about my education now than I was before. So I write my musings to remind myself what it is that I want to accomplish. I don't want to quit, or to coast. I want to continue learning and growing in all aspects of my life!

Having said that, I still will pat myself on the back for accomplishing a major life goal this year--playing a concerto with a symphony was always something that I have dreamed of doing. I was grateful to have the opportunity to do that this June.