For example, my IQ has routinely been tested as being approximately 130-135. Yet, my high level of awareness of my surroundings, my capacity for deep introspective thought, ended up helping to create someone who is very anxious. Who thinks too much, where others do, and act more on instinct. Who thinks too analytically and goes less with “the gut”

(Bear in mind, I understand also that intelligence isn’t just IQ based, but comes in different kinds - emotional, social, analytical, linguistic, and so on. Let’s just use IQ for this purpose as a shorthand)

It also comes with the cost of knowing you’re not as intelligent as you’d like to be.

Less intelligent people I don’t think really consider those sorts of things. They just live, they just do. It’s actually a curse to overthink and over consider.

I feel like there is a “sweet spot” of intelligence - in say, the 100-110 range - where you are intelligent enough to know things, but not too intelligent where you’re thinking too much or stressing yourself out.

My mother was one of the smartest people I knew.

Per her school records, her IQ was 108.

But she was very task oriented. She wasn’t a big reader or a deep thinker. But what she knew, she knew better than anyone else - she was a nurse. All of her intellect was specialized in her knowledge of medicine, human anatomy, and many had opined she should’ve been a doctor. She was well liked, very much so, very respected and popular.

I feel like being too intelligent can be a draw rather than an advantage. I’m curious if any feel the same?