Unrealized talent
Actor Eric Roberts comments on his site [ericrobertsactor.com]: “Unrealized talent does not make a comfortable chair, unless you’ve sat on it your whole life, then it makes it a dangerously comfortable chair.”
An article last year noted that “many gifted adults - even some who were enrolled in accelerated programs as schoolchildren - may not be fully cognizant of their abilities.” [Super-smart and super-busy - People with very high IQs can seem both scattered and focused, by Jack Cox, The Orange County Register, June 30, 2005]
Linda Kreger Silverman, founder of the Gifted Development Center, says in the same article, “The idea that you could be gifted and an adult and not be an achiever is beyond most people’s comprehension, and giftedness in women is particularly hidden. Women have been socialized as girls to hide their abilities, so you get an awful lot of women coming into adult life with no conception that they’re smart - just that they’re lonely.”
> also see article: The Universal Experience of Being Out-of-Sync - by Linda Kreger Silverman
In her article Unrecognized Giftedness: The Frustrating Case of the Gifted Adult, Marylou Kelly Streznewski says, “Overall, I have concluded that there are large numbers of frustrated gifted adults, who can be located by anyone who knows what to look for, who do not find outlets for their potential.
“We are not paying enough attention to trying to teach gifted people how to cope with their lives in the adult world. Far too many of them find their drive and creativity thwarted by persons or establishments who regard them as either silly or threatening.”
She also acknowledges one of the key issues in recognition and self-recognition: “I am well aware of the school of thinking which designates adults as gifted only if they have achieved something called eminence. I find many difficulties in accepting such thinking.”
Streznewski is author of the book Gifted Grownups
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