I once read… no, lol, that’s a lie. I once saw a TikTok talking about how people who are more naturally gifted often see trying hard as a negative thing. It discussed how students who put in the effort to achieve results see hard work as a natural step to achieving their goals, but students who naturally score above average see trying as unnecessary and actually avoid it since trying and failing would cause them more distress than not trying and only achieving mediocre results. In fact, maybe a lot of these students do not even have a goal for what kind of results they want to achieve; all they need to do is put enough effort to avoid failing. I am not sure how accurate the information on that TikTok was. I am definitely not sure if it was peer-reviewed. It did make me wonder, though. Does coasting by on talent mean you never really have to try and, therefore, never really feel like you failed?

There are many stories about talent and high intelligence being a burden, which prevents people from really trying and nurtures the idea of doing the bare minimum to achieve above-average results. That way, a talented person can always tell themselves, “Me barely trying got me acceptable results; imagine what will happen if I really try.” Except that ‘when I really try’ never really happens. It’s just a safety blanket, a task that is always in the back of our heads but is never really worth completing. It’s the mental equivalent of hanging a painting or changing a light bulb; you know it’s possible, you know you can get up and do it, but it never seems important enough. At some point, you just get used to the lightbulb being out and the painting standing firmly on the floor. One day, you might wake up and think, ‘Today is the day I do it’, but it never really is. It just becomes another day you thought of doing it, and you calm yourself down by convincing yourself that knowing you can complete a task is almost as good as actually completing it. But if you have never really done it, does it still remain something you can do, or does it become a way to escape the horrifying reality that slightly above average is the best you’re going to get? Of course, we are all capable of accurately accessing our abilities. If we are sure we were not trying hard, then we probably weren’t, but when will we? When will the time come to finally push ourselves to our limits and see what we are truly capable of?

In defence of highly intelligent underachieving, it manifests differently depending on the person. More importantly, sometimes we think of things like procrastination or leaving work until the last second as giving minimal effort when, in reality, it has more to do with different people working at different paces. Just because we don’t work 24/7 or dedicate certain hours of the day to work doesn’t mean we are not producing quality work. Some people need a schedule to prep and slowly complete their tasks; others, like me, wait until the night before the deadline and stay awake for hours completing task after task. I do that every time, regardless of when the task was given to me. I find the immense pressure of a deadline to be the perfect motivator. It might just be the way I work, or, as it was pointed out to me by some people, it might be ADHD. Still, every time I complete a task, I can’t help but question whether my work would improve if I spent a week on it instead of a day.

The more I explore the different ways people work on their projects, the more I begin to understand that the sporadic and often nonsensical timeline of my work is perfectly normal. I remember reading about a study which I tried hard to find and reference but couldn’t. The study examined the different ways hard-working and naturally talented people complete their work. The hard-working people would create a schedule and spend hours planning, preparing and making sure everything is done according to the criteria given to them. Naturally talented people, on the other hand, fucked around for a while, procrastinated and waited for the so-called ‘inspiration’ to hit. When it did, they could work for hours on end, delivering idea after idea.

The issue with this study is, obviously, how do you decide which person is hard-working and which one is talented (and why can’t they be both)? It’s not like there’s a simple test that accurately assesses natural talent. So we can only assume that everyone who planned and prepared immediately falls under the category of ‘hard-working’ and everyone waiting for a stroke of genius is ‘naturally gifted’. This brings me back to my original point: maybe different people have different approaches to completing a task. Studies like this often create a bias in our minds. After learning that ‘talented’ people follow the clock of inspiration, we will also begin to frame our work process that way. No matter how humble we want to be by only referring to ourselves as hard-working, we all secretly want to be effortlessly talented since those are the people our stories and books tell us made history.

I am no exception to this secret longing to be gifted. I have literally categorised myself as part of the ‘talented’ group of people for this entire story. In reality, maybe the only thing I have in common with some of the truly talented people is the way I choose to complete my work. Even that I put into question, though, since I am not sure whether my time spent not working is truly waiting for inspiration or simply procrastinating and struggling to motivate myself. Of course, waiting for inspiration sounds way cooler and less like I’m just lazy, so I tend to go with it most of the time.

When I was in sixth grade, my art teacher — a woman who perhaps should not have been allowed to shape young minds — compared me to another girl in our class. “Look at Asya, she’s not really gifted, but she’s trying so hard it almost makes up for lack of talent.” She was kind of a hater. “Look at (I don’t remember the name of the other girl, to be honest), she’s so talented, she doesn’t even need to try.” I took away two things from that weirdly discouraging comment. First, teachers can be worse bullies than students. Second, I managed to trick my teacher into thinking I’m a hard worker. Since the truth was, I was not trying hard at all. In fact, I don’t remember a single moment throughout all of my school years when I really gave it my all. So if the work that I handed in while doing the bare minimum made the teachers assume I was a hard worker, I can just keep doing what I do, and no one will ever be able to tell how little effort I am actually putting in.

That’s what I did for a while. Even when I did not get the desired results, I just thought it was because I did not put in my full effort. It was truly my reaction to anything, from academic achievements to work tasks. At some point, I asked myself: If not now, when? With that question came a scary realisation, maybe all my procrastinating was not a part of my process; maybe it was just procrastination. After years of ‘giving it my all’ taunting me from the back of my head, can I really give it my all? It’s a hard transition to make, but I realised that sitting on my couch, watching people who have probably worked really hard achieving their goals and thinking about all the things I could do if I only put enough effort cannot be my daily routine. I needed to get off the fucking couch and start working towards that elusive maximum-effort version of myself.

The fun thing about this story is that no matter their work process or talent (which I personally believe everyone has), every person will read this and relate. Every person’s hubris will push them to believe that they are a part of the naturally talented and gifted group that is intentionally conserving their efforts and has only begun to tap into their true potential. All I needed to do was create enough mystery around the true nature of what getting by on talent really means.