In college I meet a lot of people with overconfidence bias - are healthy people biased?

[noname223]

I think my threads currently are barely read. Maybe due to the cloudflare stuff people became annoyed. Though I still like writting them.
Maybe the statement of the title sounds arrogant. I think I also have a overconfidence bias in certain situations. Currrently I felt extremely like an imposter. Some people were stunned by my very good grades and were like really impressed. Well it is all shallow. It is all fake. I did not brag with the grades but everyone assumes you must be a genius with such good grades. What I really would like to be. But I am far far away of being one. Some people also experienced some mental health shit of mine and learned on top of that of my very good grades. I think many people had this stereotype of a mad genius in mind. Which is fucking ridiculous when you look at me. The sole reason why I have such good grades is I am studying like a fucking idiot. Due to child abuse the studying is deeply pathological and I already collapsed two times because of it. It ruins my life quality but I would rather kill myself than stopping to do it. I am so fucking anxious at college. And some of my fears are irrational.

Now comes the point. I have some friends in college who are way smarter than me. But I have way better grades than them. Some of them were really stunned when I told them my grades. Well it is a fucking facade. It does not mean anything. These good grades are close to be worthless. (I probably cannot work anyway but this is not the topic of this thread.). College is way way more centred around memorizing facts. And I am not even very good at that. I am just a fucking anxious workaholic who is obsessed by studying because my bullies mocked me as stupid and I experienced daily domestic violence as child/teenager for not working hard enough. When I told one of my friend my grades he said something like. "Well you really make the best out of your life!" This statement is a fucking joke. I am extremely anxious like all the time, my obsession will drive me to commit suicide, I hate my life, I feel like an imposter like every single day. This is clearly not "You make the best out of your life". However there might a small amount of truth in that statement but not what he meant by it. My life is horrendous. I run away of my problems. I am battleing my personal hell for quite some years. And I made progress on fighting with my demons. But the successful part of that story is not the fucking point about my grades. This is pretty unnecessary. This shit will end like the last job interviews. "Well you are overqualified. We don't want you." I heard these word so fucking often in the past. They will ask why did your degree take so long. You should aim for a higher degree. Though I think the inevitable collapse will come prior to that. So I won't really have such a conversation anyway.

Okay well this was a little bit off-topic but i just needed that rant right now. I am a mental wreck which is obsessed by studying and is extremely anxious about failing exams. Which literally never happened since I started to study in a serious way. And I have to say if your sole aim in life is to get good grades my consciousness would be pretty good. But if you want to be happy and have a fulfilled life no my brain is a mess. All my anxiety about failing exams is a very good motivator. I am neurotic and conscientious to a crippling point. It really is a living hell. But for getting good grades what my mom wanted it fulfills its aim. However on other very important topics I am not functioning at all. I am a wreck. So fuck my life. I am still not at the statement of the title.

The two friends I have at college are savvy as fuck. They have a good life quality and they had a very good education. Their parents sound like very smart people who gave them all what was needed to foster in them a very well and healthy amount of self-confidence. I think both of them flourished and enjoy their life. Me instead if one had to write a book how parents should not treat their kids my parents would be a perfect example. Now comes the point. I think I I have way better grades than them. It is all about memorizing facts. There barely is logic needed. And if I struggle to understand something which is not seldom I just waste hours to understand it fully. I realized on some occasions they really had a overconfidence bias. Especially on the topic writting exams. Me I am the complete opposite. I am extremely anxious to fail. And I even was very worried on exams where I got the perfect grade later. Which is pretty pathetic. I can give two examples. After two different exams I talked with them about the solutions. On some exercises we had pretty different solutions. And after comparing the answers I was very worried. I blamed myself for being so stupid and worried about the day when the results would be published. Well my answers were correct and their answers were wrong. They were so confident when they talked about them. I immediately questioned my answers and trusted them. I think when talking about exams they both have an overconfidence bias. This made me think whether most average healthy people overestimate their abilities. I once read being realisitic about your own abiliities often rather makes you feel depressed. And people who tend to overestimate themselves tend to be more happy. I ask myself whether that theory fits to them.

I think my grades barely have any indication of my intelligence. I think I am an overachiever. I am pretty skilled at writting good grades at exams but that was it. I think my two most positive traits are: I am quite a deep and thoughtful person. Moreover I am quite articulate. But I will never be that smart how I would like to be or how I subconciously make people think of me. It was funny one of them argumented with logic on an exam question. He said to me one does not have to memorize many facts for a certain course one can simply find the answers by reasoning and logic. And I am pretty sure that is often not true. Maybe in some courses but not on the one he mentioned. Many students went with their gut feeling and failed. In many exams there are traps for people who think like that. I am quite sure on the questione we disagreed on the logic was pretty flawed. Some questions are so fucking stupid. One can only answer them by memorizing unnecessary facts which one can forget afterwards. College is a fucking joke. My grades don't mean anything.

Thank you a lot for giving me the opportunity to share that. Especially feelling as an impostor who always tries to leave people with a certain impression (being exceptionally smart) tortures me. When people falsely considered me a mad genius this triggered my feeling of being impostor. I told one friend the truth I am just pretty ill and no genius at all. It was a little bit embarassing to admit that but the tormenting feeling of being an impostor was horrendous.

I currently struggle a lot to sleep. Quitting the benzo was no problem. Though the z-medication seems not be that harmless how some therapists portrayed it. I hope my sleep will soon improve. I sleep like 6 hours on a daily basis which increases my feeling of being exhausted.

I know a fucking long thread an barely anyone will read it anyway. Lol.

 

[freecoffee]

I think the ability to put hard work into something is just as, if not more, important a talent as simply being smart is, and your high grades just go to show that point. It doesn't really matter if other people are "smarter" than you (even without getting into what exactly it means to be smart), your grades are higher: you're getting better results. So maybe you think people around you are praising you for the wrong thing, but I'm not sure if that really matters since you deserve that praise; too many people can hardly put their minds toward anything.

And that leads into your question. To me, it seems like your ability to work hard stems from anxiety, but it's not like anxiety is necessary to your whole process. If you removed anxiety from the picture, but kept your hard work up, you'd keep getting the exact same results, just in a less stressful way. Healthy people are working towards the same thing you are, and whether their abilities stem from innate intelligence or hard work, they don't have any anxiety in the way and can speak their minds with full confidence as long as they don't have any monumental doubts, so I suppose that's what makes healthy people seem overconfident.

That raises the question of whether being overconfident is a good or bad trait to have, though I suppose this is another one of those debates that isn't completely black or white.

 

[imcadt99]

I can relate to much of what you said in the OP. I also exceeded far beyond my peers, deriving meaning from that. Luckily you seem to have retained that identity into college. Sadly I've lost my academic fervor so to speak despite being so successful in high school. I agree with your assessment that "healthy" people overestimate their abilities. I think a lot of that comes down to blindly trusting their intuition which leads to more confidence and thus less stress navigating the modern world. Those who think more deeply are capable of more introspection and self understanding, assuming they still posses the faculties for clear thinking, and thus they have a more healthy life free of ailments. However, any self doubt due to mental illness would throw a wrench into this process thus feeding rumination and self-doubt/hatred. I suppose the inverse is also true where idiotic people don't interrogate their thoughts to the extent more intellectually average people might thus leading to the same benefits. That's not to imply that "normal" or "average" people are stupid, only that stupid people are more likely to end up "normal" or "average" since they don't think relentlessly and second guess themselves. I hope you can find some peace, thank you for sharing your story with which I can relate.

 

[lionetta12]

I think my threads currently are barely read. Maybe due to the cloudflare stuff people became annoyed. Though I still like writting them.
Maybe the statement of the title sounds arrogant. I think I also have a overconfidence bias in certain situations. Currrently I felt extremely like an imposter. Some people were stunned by my very good grades and were like really impressed. Well it is all shallow. It is all fake. I did not brag with the grades but everyone assumes you must be a genius with such good grades. What I really would like to be. But I am far far away of being one. Some people also experienced some mental health shit of mine and learned on top of that of my very good grades. I think many people had this stereotype of a mad genius in mind. Which is fucking ridiculous when you look at me. The sole reason why I have such good grades is I am studying like a fucking idiot. Due to child abuse the studying is deeply pathological and I already collapsed two times because of it. It ruins my life quality but I would rather kill myself than stopping to do it. I am so fucking anxious at college. And some of my fears are irrational.

Now comes the point. I have some friends in college who are way smarter than me. But I have way better grades than them. Some of them were really stunned when I told them my grades. Well it is a fucking facade. It does not mean anything. These good grades are close to be worthless. (I probably cannot work anyway but this is not the topic of this thread.). College is way way more centred around memorizing facts. And I am not even very good at that. I am just a fucking anxious workaholic who is obsessed by studying because my bullies mocked me as stupid and I experienced daily domestic violence as child/teenager for not working hard enough. When I told one of my friend my grades he said something like. "Well you really make the best out of your life!" This statement is a fucking joke. I am extremely anxious like all the time, my obsession will drive me to commit suicide, I hate my life, I feel like an imposter like every single day. This is clearly not "You make the best out of your life". However there might a small amount of truth in that statement but not what he meant by it. My life is horrendous. I run away of my problems. I am battleing my personal hell for quite some years. And I made progress on fighting with my demons. But the successful part of that story is not the fucking point about my grades. This is pretty unnecessary. This shit will end like the last job interviews. "Well you are overqualified. We don't want you." I heard these word so fucking often in the past. They will ask why did your degree take so long. You should aim for a higher degree. Though I think the inevitable collapse will come prior to that. So I won't really have such a conversation anyway.

Okay well this was a little bit off-topic but i just needed that rant right now. I am a mental wreck which is obsessed by studying and is extremely anxious about failing exams. Which literally never happened since I started to study in a serious way. And I have to say if your sole aim in life is to get good grades my consciousness would be pretty good. But if you want to be happy and have a fulfilled life no my brain is a mess. All my anxiety about failing exams is a very good motivator. I am neurotic and conscientious to a crippling point. It really is a living hell. But for getting good grades what my mom wanted it fulfills its aim. However on other very important topics I am not functioning at all. I am a wreck. So fuck my life. I am still not at the statement of the title.

The two friends I have at college are savvy as fuck. They have a good life quality and they had a very good education. Their parents sound like very smart people who gave them all what was needed to foster in them a very well and healthy amount of self-confidence. I think both of them flourished and enjoy their life. Me instead if one had to write a book how parents should not treat their kids my parents would be a perfect example. Now comes the point. I think I I have way better grades than them. It is all about memorizing facts. There barely is logic needed. And if I struggle to understand something which is not seldom I just waste hours to understand it fully. I realized on some occasions they really had a overconfidence bias. Especially on the topic writting exams. Me I am the complete opposite. I am extremely anxious to fail. And I even was very worried on exams where I got the perfect grade later. Which is pretty pathetic. I can give two examples. After two different exams I talked with them about the solutions. On some exercises we had pretty different solutions. And after comparing the answers I was very worried. I blamed myself for being so stupid and worried about the day when the results would be published. Well my answers were correct and their answers were wrong. They were so confident when they talked about them. I immediately questioned my answers and trusted them. I think when talking about exams they both have an overconfidence bias. This made me think whether most average healthy people overestimate their abilities. I once read being realisitic about your own abiliities often rather makes you feel depressed. And people who tend to overestimate themselves tend to be more happy. I ask myself whether that theory fits to them.

I think my grades barely have any indication of my intelligence. I think I am an overachiever. I am pretty skilled at writting good grades at exams but that was it. I think my two most positive traits are: I am quite a deep and thoughtful person. Moreover I am quite articulate. But I will never be that smart how I would like to be or how I subconciously make people think of me. It was funny one of them argumented with logic on an exam question. He said to me one does not have to memorize many facts for a certain course one can simply find the answers by reasoning and logic. And I am pretty sure that is often not true. Maybe in some courses but not on the one he mentioned. Many students went with their gut feeling and failed. In many exams there are traps for people who think like that. I am quite sure on the questione we disagreed on the logic was pretty flawed. Some questions are so fucking stupid. One can only answer them by memorizing unnecessary facts which one can forget afterwards. College is a fucking joke. My grades don't mean anything.

Thank you a lot for giving me the opportunity to share that. Especially feelling as an impostor who always tries to leave people with a certain impression (being exceptionally smart) tortures me. When people falsely considered me a mad genius this triggered my feeling of being impostor. I told one friend the truth I am just pretty ill and no genius at all. It was a little bit embarassing to admit that but the tormenting feeling of being an impostor was horrendous.

I currently struggle a lot to sleep. Quitting the benzo was no problem. Though the z-medication seems not be that harmless how some therapists portrayed it. I hope my sleep will soon improve. I sleep like 6 hours on a daily basis which increases my feeling of being exhausted.

I know a fucking long thread an barely anyone will read it anyway. Lol.

Dumb people are more confident and happy as they are more oblivious while smart people are more anxious and less confident as they are more self aware and have better insight.