<p>My school (which is a K-12 school) held the first competition of our high school math team today but we were joined in the competition by one of our middle schoolers.</p>
<p>It's not that we're dumb or anything, but the middle school kid managed to get a perfect score (the problems were like the AMC 12 level but with more time). It left a lot of us high schoolers feeling totally humiliated. I even found out that he is taking 3 AP classes even though he is middle school.</p>
<p>How should I fight this unspeakable envy? It just seems too unbelievable because I have never seen something like this before in person. A middle schooler taking lots of AP classes and beating high schoolers in super-hard math!</p>
<p>It makes me feel like all he does is study, and yet that makes me feel like I am merely trying to sublimate these tensions by looking at the bad qualities of a person I envy instead of trying to follow their example. He is younger than me and this should seem quite pathetic, and yet should I tell myself that I have qualities that he does not have, or that I should try to achieve more myself? I feel like the former is what most people would do, and yet it feels like the latter is the right state of mind to be in.</p>
<p>If it is okay with you, please be lenient on me in your post as I am writing in frenzy and am sensitive at the moment. I suppose it is all a part of the psychological warfare that ensues when one meets his match.</p>
<p>True intelligence comes from the wisdom of being able to apply your knowledge to the real world. Not just exams. And I think a middle schooler lacks this wisdom.</p>
<p>Accept that he is a natural-born genius…it’s not just work ethic that takes him to the level he is in. I guess remind yourself that intelligence does not correlate with overall success in life or happiness after a certain point. Oh, and is the kid asian? If he is, it probably has to do with his parents.</p>
<p>the envy you feel is a pretty natural response. That’s all it is, a response. Nothing that you can conclude anything about from, so don’t. If you want to maybe respond somehow to the events that happened (like do something new, given what transpired) it would be wise to wait until the envy fades.</p>
<p>For now just treat the envy like a symptomatic virus, which has to run its course. That’s my advice.</p>
<p>And the last thing the kid would want probably would be to have humiliated everyone else, causing at least one of them to write a long post on a forum about the trauma. Actually he might find it amusing, but still sad. He just wanted to compete with you guys.</p>
<p>You seem to be coping well so far. Keep it up.</p>