Something I did wrong for many years, decades even, was to focus exclusively on trying to improve the areas where I struggle compared to normies. I always felt bad because I found it so hard to do simple things that were easy for most people.

Gradually, I realized there are things I can do that the normies can’t. So instead of constantly trying to redeem myself by improving the things I suck at, I focus on those things I’m really good at.

For example, if I do a job that is all delivery, where I’m just executing rote tasks that someone else has defined, I’ll struggle. If I do a job that is strategic and/or creative and involves very little rote delivery, I’ll excel.

The problem was that school is mostly rote delivery according to a fixed schedule, and early-career jobs tend to be the same. I really struggled during those times of my life. But once I got to the point where I could get more creative/strategic work, the way my brain works finally became an asset rather than a liability.

Avoiding situations that allow others to define me on their terms.

Yes, and at least in my case, it’s because I feel like I can either be passionate about my work at the risk of some entitled asshole swooping in and destroying everything I’ve worked so hard to build, or I can just put in the absolute minimum and try to be indifferent. Neither option is attractive or motivating.

And then on top of that, entitled assholes aren’t just destroying my work, they seem to be determined to destroy anything and everything that matters. And for what??? So yeah, I’m maybe a little burnt out.

Turns out there’s a bug in the client I’m using and it wasn’t showing the comment about anti-intellectualism. All the comments I could see were replies to that comment that I couldn’t see, so I assumed they were replies to OP.

I don’t understand why people think OP doesn’t know it’s satire.