It's really easy to look back and attribute your success to things like "I got As in school and I passed that test." Those are salient memories and legible markers. But it can be more true that what actually got you here was the ability to persevere, to disengage from bad pathways, and to recover
We tell a lot of stories about abstract ability, and we like to color over everything about ourselves in the shades of the traits that our roles value and that we're rewarded for. These are woven through with societally-influenced frames. Like, is the source of your skill "empathy"? or "intellect"?
The older I get and the more psychology I do and the more I have both the privilege and pain of living through tough things (like health challenges), the more I see that my work is the complex output of so many factors, and the more I am grateful for the immense diversity of what I can bring to it
Also the older you get the more you become someone that younger people ask for advice, which I find a bit scary; I try very hard to reflect that I have seen a lot of things work, and how I see a need for lots of kinds of work around me, rather than trying to pattern match on the things that *I* did
@grimalkina
Regarding giving advice: in undergrad one person my study group was having a conflict with their family, and asked us for advice. I was convinced that they should go meet the family and talk it out.
Some days later I heard the outcome: the talk had gone badly to the point that this student locked themselves in the toilet and called the police for help getting out.
I've not been terribly confident about advice on how strangers will behave since.
