I recognise so much of this. A lot of my friends are incredibly smart and yet are struggling with life in various ways. Most of them are programmers, which I think is a relatively good place for us, but many have trouble staying motivated when the work isn't quite what they hoped for, and they either fall into a rut of low productivity, or quit/get fired and keep looking for something better. I'm no different, but I've been very lucky to roll into something that works very well for me.

I never did homework in school, and got by on a talent for math and science (until we got to integrations, and I was unable to derive and remember the standard primitives, which saw my grades tumble into failing grades; I graduated with a good grade for math only because geometry (which is very intuitive for me) was a third of the final grade). So I managed to get by with never doing any homework, which meant that in university, I got completely stranded at the many classes that really required serious studying, and I focused mostly on the more intuitive logic/programming oriented classes that I could still ace without any real work. I couldn't graduate without the other classes, though, so I dropped out.

(I've never completed a proper IQ test that I got to see the results of; as a teenager I did one from a book that I didn't finish and still got 136, and I got 139 from one on TV that maxed out at 141, so I assume I'm somewhere near 140. I was tested for motivation problems at school as a teenager, which apparently showed I was smart, but my mother didn't want to share the results with me. Clearly I was smart, just not good at actual work.

So I'm lazy as shit, or possible struggle with motivation, but who can tell the difference? But I've been lucky to roll into a field that I have a talent for (software development), and I'm doing pretty good there. I was single and not dating at all (too insecure to even try) until 32 (yes, virgin until then), when I tried online dating and eventually met my wife, who has been great for me and my career (and I apparently for hers). So convinced me to quit jobs where I wasn't happy and find something better, and the financial stability she provided helped a lot in the step to become a freelancer. I'm still constantly distracted by online stuff (I should be programming as I'm typing this), and I wonder if I would have been an amazing programmer if I could keep my focus on programming for the whole day, but my work is generally good enough to get by. At least as long as I'm interested in the project; on boring, repetitive projects that are no different from any other, I start out great and after a couple of months I lose interest and I need to do something else. My longest job ever was almost 4 years, and that was 2 years too long. These days I work as a freelancer on projects from 6-18 months, and that works about right for me. Team mates tend to love me during the first few months, but get tired of me after about a year.

My current project is more interesting than usual: I set up the first prototype and the team developed around me. I get to focus on the interesting stuff that I care most about, and there's interesting stuff with graph databases, complex data modeling, and I get to refactor the structure on the project simply because I say it's necessary. Other people have recently been added to the project to pick up the more boring stuff, and for the first time I feel like I'm getting recognition for the stuff I'm best at. This is an amazing feeling and I can see myself working here for much longer than usual, but we'll see how things look after another half year (I've been here for nearly a year now).

But again, I know I've been lucky, as I haven't actually worked for any of this; I was just lucky to roll into something I have a talent for, was lucky to meet my wife, and got lucky with some of the projects I worked on. But I could easily see how my life could have taken a different direction. 20 years ago, nobody would have said that I would be the successful and happily married one among my friends.

It's still hard to believe, especially when I see so many people who are just as smart as I am, and most likely working harder, often more knowledgeable about technical topics, still struggle with so many aspects of life. I feel like I never really earned the easy life I've got.