I'm not as smart as I thought I was

反響を集めているこのスレッド、
自分も大いに共感し勇気づけられるところが多かった。

I'm not as smart as I thought I was
http://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/nxdzz/im_not_as_smart_as_i_thought_i_was/

自分もHarvardの授業に出てみて落ち込むことも多かった。
なんで自分は他の学生たちのように頭がよくなく、
Problem setを解くのにも時間がかかって結局提出日まで最後まで解けずに終わってしまうのかと。

奴らはすごいとか、授業が英語で完全に理解しきれてないとか、
完全なるいいわけだった。
単に、自分が分からなくてもやもやしながらネットブラウズをしたりTwitterしたりしている間に、
奴らは一生懸命勉強し、分からなければ助けを求め、何とか道を切り開こうとできる限りの努力をしていたのだと。

分からなければ自分の力不足を素直に認めて助けを求める。
現実から逃げてネットブラウズなどに時間を浪費したりせず、問題に直面してひたすら踏ん張る。
一人でくじけそうになるようなら共同してやる。

一部の日本語訳はこちらから↓
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/tictac/20120110/p1

ここに紹介されている返信も素敵だが、
こちらの返信も素晴らしかったので引用。

When I first started MIT, I stood in awe of fellow freshmen who were taking 8 classes a semester and getting ready to do graduate work in math and physics. And I rambled on to my parents and whoever would listen about how unfathomably smart these kids must be. I was obsessed with this idea of the genius MIT student that I clearly wasn't.
My dad told me something that I wasn't able to appreciate until much later --- that it's not about being "smart", but about sustained focus, dedication, and discipline. I didn't believe him. I figured that some people are just born smarter, and there's an upper limit on your intelligence that holds you back, and that I had hit that limit. No doubt some people are more predisposed to certain kinds of achievement. It's very very easy to blame your intelligence than your motivation when by all accounts, you are busting your ass, killing yourself spending 20 hours on each analysis problem set and those guys are spending less than 5.
But then I started thinking about those kids I idolized. Some of them had been doing programming or math competitions since they were in elementary school. One of my friends would tell me things like "I'm thinking of going through a complex analysis book this summer and going back through my notes to review my topology." Now this was a guy with /focus/ and /dedication/! I thought to myself: until I spend that much time doing focused work, how can I expect to be as good?
I realized that "genius" is overrated. It is rarely just there. You have to focus and keep pushing yourself to get there.