Intelligence: Nature vs Nurture

I've had a wonderful life. Sure there have been many challenges, there are segments where I wish I could have had a do over or reset, but overall, I consider each a learning experience, in this global classroom/experiment we call life! It has always seemed natural to me to want to learn everything I could before I took anything on, because I knew the next challenge would be easier, if we "just read the instructions."

It made me wonder, was that natural, was it innate, part of the fight or flight reaction we all have, or is it just easier to go along to get along? Did we really need to know everything - was it better to be a generalist or a specialist? A leader or a follower? A do-er or a be-er? And who was keeping track?

Perhaps that why I created my own personal library, because while the internet has helped supply the info we need to be successful in any field of interest, did we have everything at our disposal when we weren't sure what we wanted to do? Is inspiration part of the process? What about drive? Daniel Pink, from his enlightening book Drive showed how individuals succeeded, and how even the comments of others, or the changing environment could determine what they did, how they were driven and what were the results? Some would take on enough to continue the overall view that they were intelligent, by avoiding anything that questioned that ideal - yet others continued to take on tasks that challenged them and they felt bettered them.

So does it come down to quality vs quantity? How much do we take on to learn - in our field; in our world view? Some would read everything within their field because it helped them get the recognition, the raise, the promotion, the accolades - while others liked to learn a little of everything, to understand the relationship between what they do and what others do, and how it all works together. 

Maslow' Hierarchy is shaped as a pyramid, that the ultimate goal for us is to be the very best, so good that we could teach others by modeling our behavior. I would argue to succeed, without undue or unreal pressures to achieve the things that we could never achieve, just to meet someone else's unrealistic expectations doesn't benefit anyone, especially us. I looked at all of the basic needs, and found if all eight, called the Psychology of Needs, are met, or if the needs that we felt were most important, we would have a sense of euphoria - a pure happiness. So if you notice over the next few days those moments, congrats - you've achieved happiness - so it's not the question of nature vs nurture, but rather what can we do that would make us happy because I believe that the purest sense of gaining knowledge because that's what we want to do,  and it's the quality for some and quantity for others - it's not a number (let's leave IQ out of this, but perhaps EQ could be considered if happiness is a component or the ultimate goal), but intelligence as a way of life, and all lives as different ways.....so enjoy your path, but don't forget to stop along the way....