My So-Called Genius

What happens when a whiz kid ages out of her precociousness?

Note: This essay was originally published in More magazine, which no longer exists, in 2008. Sixteen years later, I still haven’t lived up to my original smartypants promise. And that’s okay.

I learned the word “precocious” long before most other kids my age. By the time I was five or six, I heard it often—and I was quick to pick up words. Growing up, I was always younger than everyone around me, and ahead of my peers. Being someone who was defined by a long, difficult adjective made me special; it made me, in some essential way, who I am.

I had to keep up with my smart older sisters; if one of them was reading Little Women, I had dibs on it next. I learned to read early and voraciously, squirreling away splendiferously big words to spring on adults whenever I needed attention, which was often. A psychologist who specialized in gifted children gave me a word-based IQ test and pronounced me a 165, a number I thought was as immutable as the color of my eyes. I skipped a grade, and thrived on being called “smart” and “cute” for being so young and clever. My third grade teacher predicted I was destined to become a great writer at an early age, which I figured would just happen as a matter of course. It’s fair to say a fundamental part of my personality, and my fantasy of the future, was based on being precocious.

I whizzed through school with straight A’s, racking up awards and honors, competing in national speech tournaments, and writing a column for my hometown newspaper at 15. At 17, I entered one of the most competitive colleges in the country—Wesleyan University—and was shocked to find I was no longer head of the class, but the middle of the heap; it turns out there are hoards of smarty-pants out there. Still, I edited the school newspaper, traveled the Mediterranean alone for a year after graduation, and threw myself into a freelance writing career with such fervor that one editor dubbed me “the little engine that could.” But over the years, as my achievements failed to keep up with my ridiculous expectations, and I found myself annoyed anytime anyone younger published a bestseller or won a Pulitzer Prize, that engine chugged slower and slower.

So what happens, at 46, when you’re no longer precocious? Suddenly, I’m older than many of my colleagues. Despite having published hundreds of magazine article and two books, I’m no longer an up-and-comer in my field: there are legions of people younger than me who are much more accomplished. Day by day I seem to be losing my smarts, and we won’t mention my cutes. All those early predictions of my dazzling promise haven’t quite panned out. Most of the peers I was ahead of early in my career have not only caught up, they’ve passed me by, starting their own companies, writing one book after another, buying vacation homes, and even embarking on lucrative second careers. “Precocious,” according to my Oxford English Dictionary, means “flowering or fruiting early,” and it sometimes seems to me that my blossoms have all faded while theirs are still in full bloom.

“Precocious” means “flowering or fruiting early,” and my blossoms have faded         

All of us, in our 40s [now 60s] and beyond, have to come to a reckoning with our dreams of what we wanted to be when we were younger and who we actually are; that’s essentially the psychological definition of “maturity.” Most grown-ups accept the fact that while they may not have become an international opera star or Nobel prizewinner in medicine, they are accomplished in their fields, and have perhaps surprised themselves with successes, experiences, and rewards that were different or beyond what they dreamed. They appreciate the reality of who they’ve become—senior manager if not CEO--and acknowledge their skills, accomplishments, and lessons learned from occasional failures or setbacks along the way. Evolved grown-ups, it seems to me, don’t live in a state of constant disappointment, but pat themselves on the back once in awhile, know themselves well enough to take reasonable risks, and plan positive, creative next steps.

But for those of us whose precociousness forecast an early and spectacular success, our midlife accomplishments are much more difficult to reconcile. No matter what we’ve achieved (I wrote a bestseller, by some fluke), we end up feeling a nagging sense of failure. Our identities are based on being young, but we’re blowing out way too many candles on the birthday cake. Our image in the mirror not only conflicts with how young we feel, it collides with our entire sense of being. I suppose the precocious can take heart in the fact that undoubtedly we were first to coin the term “mid-life crisis.”

At this age, how do we ex-whiz kids cope with what I guess you could call a crisis of postcociousness? The tried-and-true remedies are to start drinking heavily, gripe at the world for never giving us our due, and criticize other, more successful people in our fields for all their defects. Me, I’ve preferred denial.

I’ve long pretended that the reason my precociousness has yet to truly flower is that I’m still relatively young. George Eliot didn’t write her first novel until she was 40, so given today’s life expectancy, that gives me until at least 53 to write a great novel, right? My age, I figure, is a lot like my weight: as long as I exercise and carry it well, no one will ever guess how high the number really is. I take quizzes that show that biologically, my “real age” is 34. I date like I’m in my 20s, get crazy streaks put into my hair, and have otherwise avoided most of the trappings of serious adulthood—marriage, a house, children, financial security, a reasonable retirement plan.

While I’ve discovered a useful big word for my condition—“psychological neotony,” a term coined by British psychologist Tk to describe someone who acts younger than their age, ostensibly to cope with the evolving demands of a society where the flexible characteristics of youth are becoming more useful than the staid wisdom of older age—I have to admit it’s a cover for pretending there’s still time for the spectacular success that has eluded me.

Being young at heart is fine, but at some point, we all have to grow up and face certain realities. On my last birthday—the one that put me in my late 40s—I realized that denial is no longer working. I am no longer young and precocious, and I have not won the Pulitzer Prize or a Man Booker Award.

The problem with being precocious is the notion that talent alone will make you a success.

Where does that leave me? At least, it turns out, among formerly gifted kids, I’m hardly alone. Early intellectual aptitude doesn’t necessarily predict adult accomplishment, as we often believe. In fact, the opposite may be truer. Malcolm Gladwell, in a speech on “The American Obsession with Precociousness,” pointed out that few childhood prodigies go on to become successful musicians. That’s because there’s a huge difference between talent and the application of talent. No matter how easily you may pick up an instrument, you still have to practice more than your peers to get to Carnegie Hall. The adults who succeed in any field, says Gladwell (who, darn him, is two years younger than me), are those who have an over-riding talent for hard work and concentration. I know this from experience: I was born with an ear for language, but it was only daily practice that made me fluent in Italian in my 30s.

The problem with being precocious is the notion that talent alone will make you a success. If everyone tells you at ten that you’ll become a great novelist, you just sit back and dream about your book jackets, which only takes you so far. Not only don’t precocious kids think they have to work hard, but deep down, they believe true effort entails too much of a risk. If your entire identity is wrapped up in becoming a great writer (musician, scientist, politician, chef), what happens if you produce something mediocre? Better, it seems, to hold on to the idea that you could be great than to risk being merely good. Better never to try than to try and fail.

At 46, I finally realized that kind of thinking was getting in my way. I dismissed my actual achievements because they paled against my supposedly spectacular promise. People who read my books and articles would congratulate me on my success, but I felt like a fraud.  It got to the point where not only wasn’t I writing great books, I wasn’t working on any new books at all. I spent half a year writing a novel, but when people who read the first draft didn’t immediately tell me it was brilliant, but that it was a great start and needed a lot of work, I just gave up. I was wasting my time—and my talent.

I needed help. I turned to Martha Borst, an organizational consultant and coach who is President of Avista Consulting Group and author of Your Survival Strategies Are Killing You. I described my difficulties working on a new project, moving forward in my career, and getting unstuck. She had seen my type plenty of times before. “You,” she said, “have an enormous fear of failure.”

Perfectionists always lose

 Well, duh. But what do I do with it?  Borst broke down some of the ways my fear of failure plays out. I procrastinate, working against externally-imposed deadlines, and don’t take control of my time. I look for approval from others—my agent, my editors, the UPS man--instead of deciding for myself if an idea is worth pursuing. I’m critical of myself and others, and see mistakes as catastrophes or character flaws instead of learning opportunities. Most of all, the impossible standards I internalized as a precocious kid have made me a perfectionist. “Perfectionists always lose,” said Borst.

 I had to let go of being perfect, of being precocious, and believing I should be extraordinary. That’s the only chance I had of achieving anything even good. Borst’s advice resonated with what a psychologist told me several years ago when I was stuck writing my first book, which was to just write a good book, not a great one. “You can write a good book, can’t you?” she asked. “The bookstores are filled with good books.” Sure: That advice helped me get to work to write what turned out to be a very good—if not great-- book.

As Borst explained to me, if you strive for excellence, rather than perfection, you can take more risks and be more relaxed because the stakes aren’t so high all the time. If you make a mistake, you can learn from it and try again. If your novel doesn’t work, you can rewrite. Borst offered me some tools—setting aside sacred time for work, breaking tasks down into manageable bites--to help me overcome my fear of failure, and get back to trying to write pieces that, best-case scenario, may make a difference to the people who read them. “When you’re born with talent,” Borst told me, “it’s out of synch not to give it back.”

One day, in the midst of writing something that was never going to win me any awards, I had a revelation: I’ve already failed to live up to my promise of huge accomplishments at a young age. Instead of making me depressed, I started jumping around the room. Time’s up! I can finally throw away ridiculous expectations, take some risks, and work without constant fear of failure.

When it comes to precociousness, age itself has been the greatest gift. I finally have the opportunity to stop feeling that I was born sprinkled with fairy dust and am waiting for the magic to happen. Already, it’s a huge relief to have outgrown my precociousness, to let go of the expectation of superstar success.

I’m grateful I was born with certain gifts, but at midlife, now I can catch up on others I’ve missed acquiring along the way—concentration, acceptance, and the persistence and flexibility to shift directions and try again when things don’t work.

Maybe by letting go of my precociousness, I can accomplish some surprising things in the next phase of my life. I could write a novel. Who knows—I might even be the first among my peers to become a late bloomer.