Most of us know people who resent others’ successes when they feel they’re smarter or more capable, and writer Nick Sorrentino shares a tale about a relative who recently exhibited such behavior. The attitude exhibited by his relative, who not only averred that the successful person being discussed didn’t deserve his success, but declared that the smartest people should be the most-rewarded, has run amok in modern society. It’s reflected in demands that the rich be taxed harder, that things should be “free” i.e. paid for by others rather than be paid for by the recipients, and by the ever-expanding welfare state.
It ignores the most basic reality of a free economy:
People pay you for what you do, not for what you are.
You can be Da Vinci smart, you can have the insight of Einstein, Newton and Tesla, but unless you do something that other people value with those smarts, you don’t deserve a penny of someone else’s money. Thomas Edison famously observed:
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Smarts give you the idea. Effort makes it something of value. A hard worker of pedestrian intelligence will often-to-usually outperform a lazy genius in life. An athlete of moderate talent but with a strong work ethic is of more value than a gifted dilettante.
This reality is increasingly lost in a society where an ever-growing number of people demand they be given instead of being compensated for that which they produce. This itself is an outcome of the false notion, created by the rise of social media platforms, that one’s opinion is ipso facto valid and important. Some declare that their time is worth more than others are willing to pay for it. They elect politicians who agree with them, who tell them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear, and they and their politicians take from others to benefit themselves.
The United Negro College Fund’s slogan, A Mind is a Terrible Thing To Waste, speaks to the value of education and to the fact that even the brightest of us benefit from training. Training is doing, it’s not demanding compensation for being bright. College education is meant to train the brain, to both fortify the talent and to teach skills. However, the development of talent and the teaching of skills are wasted if no one is willing to exchange value for the implementation of that talent and those skills. An advanced degree in the cultural anthropology of sea monkeys may require quite a bit of brain power and develop a substantial skill set, but aren’t that brainpower and those skills wasted if they cannot be used to do stuff that others will pay for? There may very well be a small market for someone with that degree in academia, and there may very well be a job out in the real world where the intellectual base and skill set that were developed in pursuit of that degree would be of benefit, but if the student doesn’t find a job, should that student complain that his or her smarts aren’t being justly compensated?
As for the mind being a terrible thing? Smart people throughout history have convinced themselves of wrong things. Many have reached the erroneous conclusion that their smarts are what makes them valuable and that they deserve to be compensated for being smart. Many have considered being smart as the bulwark against the less-smart, as a presumed and innate defense against those benighted souls who lack what they have. Smarts often spawn condescension, exhibited both in dismissal of those who, either by pedigree or beliefs, are deemed less-smart, and in presumption that the smartest of all are the most correct of all. To quote Thomas Sowell:
Sometimes it takes a high IQ to evade the obvious.
Increased capacity for self-delusion aside, intellectual capability (being “smart”) is a very good thing. It’s akin to being a naturally fast runner in a foot race. The fast runner is able, with less effort and greater comfort, to outrun his competitors. However, if the fast runner decides to run in a direction of his own choosing rather than towards the finish line the race’s organizers set, he accomplishes nothing of value. If the fast runner doesn’t train, and the slower runners do, the fast runner might find that he’s no longer the fastest runner in subsequent races.
If the fast runner is so fast, whether by natural talent, training, coaching, or a combination, that others find their way to him just to see him run, he has accomplished something of value, even if he strikes out on his own instead of running in someone else’s race. That’s the way of the entrepreneur, and the lessons are the same. Our talents and skills are only compensable when others pay us for using them to their benefit. So, if you think you deserve to be paid more than a plumber or a CEO, go out and do something that someone’s willing to pay you for. If you can’t find someone to do that, do something about it. Train yourself to be better at what you do, or train yourself to do something better.
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