I unknowingly spent a large chunk of my childhood years being pushed to accomplish things as quickly as possible. Who’s to blame? Me – or society; it all depends on who you ask.

Though I have no idea where I “learned” it, I always had this constant nagging urge to be the best in my class. The notion that success only happens to the young (or very young) is a lot more common that I thought, according to Confessions of a Late Bloomer, written by Scott Barry Kaufman for the November/December 2008 issue of Psychology Today Magazine.

By high school, I stopped trying to conform to the traditional education system and began to seek our learning opportunities that worked for me. This lead me to leave high school 6 months before I was set to graduate – I finished via an accredited long-distance program through Indiana University faster than planned.

“Late bloomers are actually plentiful, and each has his or her own story and distinctive pathway,” says Kaufman. “Stopping to look at all the paths together calls into question some of society’s most cherished beliefs— about the nature of human development, the roles of intelligence and education in creative achievement, and the ingredients of success at any age. All too often, what society thinks is a limiting factor—harsh early life experiences, such as parental loss—may turn out to be the very thing that enables eventual success.”

My confidence still suffers from, what I see, as a lack of sufficient life progress. So many others in my age group are already working in executive positions, own houses, are having kids, and paying their bills with steady incomes. Some part of me wants all those things, but I don’t want to sit in a cubicle to obtain “financial happiness” – there are many more important things in life (which is far too short to do a job you hate until you retire).

Kaufman’s article features some fantastic research about gene development and the benefits of older successes. “Ability can take time to develop,” he says. “The contribution that genes make to ability doesn’t determine everything; rarely is it laid out in one burst. ‘The genes don’t act all at once, but can take years to unfold,’ says Dean Keith Simonton, a psychologist at University of California at Davis. ‘We know that the genes are partly responsible for brain organization, but we also know that the brain is not completely organized until well into adulthood.’”

I’ve got at least 15 other intelligent quotes from the article that I could include, but I encourage you to read the whole thing for yourself! Comparing ourselves to others can be a helpful tool for progress, but it is also well known for hindering our determination – something I am all too familiar with. I’ve never had an article feel as though it was speaking directly to me … it is quite surreal.

The next time you feel like you are “off-schedule“, remember this: “Especially in light of our extended life span, it’s worth confronting the very notion of late blooming to ask: late for what?”

[Image courtesy of glovsky225 on flickr.com]