8 Surprising Downsides Of Being More Intelligent Than Most | Take A Moment To Question (2024)

Gone are the days when acting dumb was cool. Smart really is the new sexy.Intelligence is one of the most highly valuedand sought afterqualities anyone can have. From having a clearer understanding of the world, to acing pub quizzes, there are so many advantages to being intelligent.

We’re all encouraged to pursue intelligence, and be the best we can be. There’s never any question that knowledge is anything other than good.There’s no list of consequences handed over with your A* grades in high school.

But then,thinkingabout the old saying, ‘every rose has its thorns’, there must surely be some downsides to having a high IQ. So here are 8 disadvantages you might be familiar with if your IQ is way above average.

1. Yourlevel of patience probably isn’t as high as your IQ

Think about those times when you’re trying to tell someone something, but they don’t hear you. They don’t hear the first time, or the second time, and after the third time you throw your hands up in despair and give up. It’s exactly that kind of frustration that those of higher intelligence experience when people just don’t understand.

We all get frustrated every now and then, but when you’ve got a valid and interesting line of conversation, and people just don’t get it, it drives you insane, right?

Having a high IQ means that every now and then, you’ll find yourself in conversation with others who perhaps aren’t as gifted in the intelligence department. You might be desperate to offload your thoughts about some new philosophical question that’s arisen, or give your opinion on the latest state of political affairs, but everyone you try and talk to just doesn’t have a clue what you’re talking about.

The chances are that whilst your IQ is sky high, your level of patience probably isn’t quite as impressive. Explaining concepts and issues in layman’s terms, when you have a deeper understanding, is a good skill to have, but when it’s a constant requirement of every conversation, it can be infuriating.

2. Little achievements go unnoticed

Think back to when you went to school, were your classes split into higher and lower sets? If they were, and if you ever found yourself in the higher set, you might have noticed those in lower sets were rewarded for things that were just expected of you.

Maybe someone got an award in assembly for finally memorising their times tables, something you did months, maybe years, before. It can feel pretty unfair, and it’s not something that necessarily stops when you leave education either.

If you’ve grown up with more being expected of you than most, because you have the ability to excel more than most then the chances are that throughout your life, it won’t just be others expecting more from you, but rather you expecting more of yourself.

You’ll push yourself, and sure, at times that will be a good thing, the more you push yourself the further you’ll go. But if you don’t reach your goals, and you don’t get to wherever it was that you thought you were going, you might feel like you’ve let yourself down more than anyone else. And despite however many achievements you may have made along the way, you might not even recognise them as notable.

3. Complacency – the intellect’s downfall

On the other hand, rather than pushing yourself too hard, you might find yourself not putting any effort in at all, because you might not need to!

Things that others need to work hard for, and put time and effort into, you might be able to do without a moment of preparation. Think again of your school days, and how there’s always some who can put in minimal effort, perhaps only revising a few hours before an exam, and do better than those that had been revising for months.

It’s great to be able to breeze through life without much work, worry or stress, but that’s when you become complacent. You’ll be pleased with your achievements, and probably quite smug. Obviously there’s no real harm in that, but the likelihood is that everything you attempt, you’ll approach with the same lack of effort that got you the results of your previous achievements.

Eventually though, you mightcome across something that’s not as easy to breeze. And if you’ve already got into the habit of not needing to do much work, you might struggle more than those that are used to challenges.

4. Ignorance is bliss

Most of us, if not all, can probably think of a time when we became aware of something that it would’ve been easier to remain unaware of. Whether it was something that hurt to find out, or just some grim detail about your mate’s personal life that wish you’d never heard. Sometimes the truth can be hard to swallow, and we long for ignorance. As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss.

But when you’re gifted with a higher than average intelligence, ignorance can be hard to come by. Others might be fooled bythe well worded speeches and false promises of politicians, whilst you instead let the economy talk for itself. Sure, it would be nice to believe that things will change for the better, taxes might go down, and standard of living might go up, but generally, the more intelligent of us are also realists.

When you know more than most, there’s not really any way you can blindly believe promises of change and improvement without first turning to the facts of history, and the stats of today.

5. The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know

With everything you learn, you’ll be constantly realising how much more there is to learn that you haven’t even looked at yet. No one person will ever have complete understanding of anything, and as soon as you realise that, the pursuit of knowledge begins.

You’ll pursue as much knowledge as you can, but ultimately there’ll always be an underlying frustration at the fact that there’s just not enough time in the world for you to grasp everything.

Despite your relatively high intelligence, you might feel overwhelmed by the amount you don’t know, and disheartened by how little you know in comparison. To be humble isn’t a bad trait, but you have a right to feel proud of your level of intellect.

6. Being smart can actually lead to sleepless nights

We’ve all had nights were we’ve sat awake till the early hours, going over and over something that’s already happened, or dwelling on something that might never happen.

But if you’ve got a higher IQ, you probably overthink things more than those without your level of intelligence. From analysing each word of a past conversation, to assessing the possible outcomes of future situations, to panicking about politics, your overly active mind can actually stop you from getting a good nights sleep.

The trouble with a great mind, is that it’s pretty hard to stop it whirring thoughts round and round, all hours of the day.

7. You tend to ignore your heart, and follow your head

We all know someone who’s taken huge risks, ignoring their head and following their heart, even if it leads them into trouble. Those of extreme intelligence though are more likely to do the opposite – ignore their heart.

You can’t really go wrong with allowing logic to dictate your choices ,but when it means your heart goes ignored, at point do you allow yourself to feel?

Feeling and loving is what makes us human. There are obvious, well reasoned and clever choices, and then there are impulsivedecisions that ignore what we should do, and take advantage of what we can do. Letting yourself be vulnerable is sometimes just as important as protecting yourself.That’s what living is.

8. You might become what they call a ‘Grammar Nazi’

Think about times you’ve heard peopletalking about something you’re particularly clued up on, and they’ve got the facts wrong, you were probably dying to correct them. It’s natural.

With social media on the rise, this is particularly relevant in grammar. Every day you see misspelt statuses and comments full of grammar mistakes. And then you see other comments, by the perhaps more intelligent, correcting the mistakes.

You might have heard the term ‘grammar nazi’ thrown around at those who are sticklers for perfect spelling and sentence constructions. And its exactly those that find themselves subject to the phrase ‘grammar Nazi’. The more you understand the rules of grammar, the closer you get to becoming the living and walking demonstration of the term.