The Intelligence Trap

Dear Tori,

This is something you will not hear from many others. It is something that I have come to see for myself over the course of years and years of being around people that are and think they are "intelligent".

As you go through life, you will meet a great deal of people that put so much importance on being intelligent, they act as if having it is the goal of life itself. Or that it is the most important quality to have.

The importance of intelligence is greatly overestimated and I have found that the more intelligent the person is, or think they are, the more apt they are to overestimate it's importance and make it a large part of their self-worth. Intelligence is only a tool and the person that thinks it is anything more, in my opinion, is a prisoner of their own ego.

Of course, this does not go for everyone that is intelligent. I know very intelligent people that do not covet intelligence.

Intelligence does not guarantee happiness, health, long life, wealth or even success. All it does is allow someone to process certain types of information faster then someone of lesser intelligence, to solve problems. It doesn't even process ALL types of information. The amount of intelligence you have does not give you more or less inspiration, wisdom, compassion, character, integrity or a dozen other qualities that CAN determine and help you achieve whatever your goals of life and happiness are.

Is it good to have intelligence? Yes, but it's not as important as having other qualities such as inspiration, wisdom, compassion, character, integrity or even ambition to achieve your goals.

Here's a question for you..

"If you want to achieve a goal in life, is having the intelligence to solve some of the problems to achieve the goal faster MORE important than:

Having the inspiration to dream of your goals in the first place?
The ambition to achieve them?
The wisdom to choose them?
The motivation to keep at it through obstacles to accomplish them?"

Tori, you can have all the intelligence in the world and never be able to do anything with it without all these other qualites. BUT, you can still achieve your goals without great intelligence if you have the other qualities. It might just take a little longer.

I don't say all of this because I don't think you are intelligent. I know you are intelligent and everyone that I have talked to that tells me about you says you are very intelligent. I say this because I hope you make your goals to be things that make you happy and give you a rich and rewarding life. I hope you use intelligence to achieve these goals and NOT MAKE IT THE GOAL because it's only a very small piece of the big picture of what you can achieve, who you are and who you can become.