I come from a family of academics. My grandparents were all professors in China. My parents wanted to be professors, but I think because of immigration and perhaps the cultural revolution, their language skills were not up to par. My parents never pushed me in school. They pushed me in tennis, but not school. Ever since I was a child, I was always just naturally gravitated more towards academics in spite of my parents’ efforts to tamper that desire. For instance, they got me hooked on television–yes, it’s addicting–pretty early in life. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not. Were they trying to protect me or was it something a little more sinister? I’d like to think it was the former.
Because of this, I spent a large portion of my youth questioning where I stood on the intelligence scale. My language ability was clearly not great because I wasn’t a native English speaker–despite English probably being my favorite subject in school. And even though I’ve always performed stellar on standardized mathematics examinations, I’ve never been exposed to the more difficult, advanced, or competitive stuff. I think my parents just never wanted me to be highly educated, despite the fact that that was what I wanted. I think they preferred a “dumb jock” type, someone who they can exert influence over and control.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this post, and I’ve deviated from my title. I think what I want to say is that, at the end of the day, being smart is not that important. It’s what you do in life that defines you. You can’t pick your parents and you can’t choose your upbringing. You can only plan and strive for a better tomorrow using whatever is in your toolbox. That’s what we’re all doing.
The Ivory Tower 
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