#7: Everybody is a Genius

Albert Einstein is perhaps the greatest mind ever to have graced this Earth, and he said:

"Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid."

The definition of intelligence and who's smart and who's not has always intrigued me. As we grow up and progress through the educational system, we determine who's the smart one based on what grades they get. We think that the guy who aces every test must be super smart, and the gal who barely passed her paper is dumb. The reason we do this is simply because it's easy. Everyone has a number or letter attached to them, and that in turns, provides for an intellectual stereotype. While grades are important, this form of judgment that we have in our early year is quite flawed.

Think of the adults in your life, or maybe even the people in the news. We think of people like former President Bush as dumb, and most of the billionaires in the world as geniuses. Most people confidently establish their opinon of who's smart and who's not without even knowing what their GPA was or how they did in school. We judge people's intelligence on the decisions they make and how they act, not how many questions they get right or wrong on a test.

In my mind, if you want to know who's smart, take a look at the decisions they make. If most of the decisions they make are good, then they're smart, if not, then they're dumb. The problem that arises here, though, is that the ability to make the right decisions varies from topic to topic for each person. For instance, from NBA star Dennis Rodman was seen as wild, reckless, and dumb. Yet, when he played basketball, there was hardly a player that knew the game of basketball and its ins and outs as well as he. Does that make him smart or dumb? Jimmy Carter was a great huminatarian and won the Nobel Peace Prize, but the decisions he made as President left Americans unhappy. Is Jimmy Carter intelligent or stupid?

This is where Einstein's quote comes in. We call all be seen as an expert or a genius if we're in the right field. Rodman may not make the smartest life decisions, but he was a brilliant basketball player. The Presidency wasn't the thing for Jimmy Carter, but he looks incredibly bright when it comes to how to help society. What it all comes down to, is that we're all geniuses in a way; we just need to find out in what way. There were times after I failed a Physics test where I felt dumb, but what if I had never taken a Physics class to begin with? Then I'd feel pretty smart.

All in all, there's actually two things I learned that I'm trying to convey: 1) Be part of an environment you love and know well, and 2) Make good decisions in life.