What are your experiences with people who you deem dumb smart.
I might qualify! I got my BS in physics at 19. That counts, right?
But I was not successful in grad school the first time around because my interests keep drifting around and I don't spend enough time learning what I should be learning. I managed to impress enough people on bluelight to get appointed moderator here, similarly on a programming discussion board, and now I've built something of a reputation in chemistry on sciencemadness. I worked as a database engineer, then a journal editor, and found my way back to grad school where I'm now holding a 3.9 GPA instead of a 2.9. I am always full of regret; if I had just focused the first time around, I could have been, oh, I don't know, a half-decent physicist maybe holding down a postdoc. If I had been willing to write software or manage journals, I might have a real job. Instead I'm now the oldest grad student after I had been the youngest.
I don't know, sometimes I think screwing around was worth it. I'm a voraphile, which is horrifying. It's particularly awful when you're 13 and you don't understand why you sexually fantasize about your own death. That definitely motivated me to use drugs. Psychedelics, somehow, broadened my sexual interests to include stuff that's actually possible, as in being sexually dominated rather than... swallowed whole. Porn helped with that. I don't think I would have a sex life if not for porn, which contradicts some cultural "wisdom". When I was young I thought I couldn't ever date, but that turns out to be false. I've done okay, or amazingly well by the standards of submissive heterosexual men, who seem to be mostly shut-ins.
Everyone has their own journey, I guess. Fix your problems. I wish I could end this post with something like "I eventually realized...", but I never eventually realized anything. There were definitely realizations, but the next day was, at best, slightly easier.
The only thing that works is this disgustingly pithy advice that was constantly being emailed to us by my former employer's CEO and founder:
"Work very hard."