I heard a story of four people on a plane: The President of the United States, the World’s Smartest Man, a Boy Scout, and a Priest. The engine failed and they all had to bail out, but there were only three parachutes.
The President of the United States grabbed a chute and jumped, saying, “I’m the President of the United States, the world needs me.”
The World’s Smartest Man grabbed a chute and jumped, saying, “I’m the world’s smartest man. The world needs me.”
The Priest, with a sad and sober face, turned to the Boy Scout and said, “Son, I’ve had a long, good life. You go ahead. Take the last parachute.”
“No worry, father,” said the Boy Scout. “There are still two parachutes left.”
“What do you mean?” replied the Priest.
“The world’s smartest man jumped out with my backpack.”
The moral of the story? There are several, and they’re pretty obvious. One is, pride comes before a fall. That’s literally true here. Another is, we love seeing the arrogant get what’s coming to them.
But there’s another, more subtle, that perception trumps intelligence. People can be really smart and not see things right and really screw things up.
I’ve also noticed that the more intelligent people believe themselves to be, the more likely they are to also believe that their point of view is all that matters. No question, I’ve fallen prey to this intelligence-inspired stupidity myself. People who think they know everything don’t need to listen to other people. They don’t need outside perspective. So they live in an extremely limited awareness. As a result, they make decisions that are nearly as ignorant as jumping out of an airplane with a backpack.
We all want to be more intelligent. But maybe it would be better if we all wanted to be more perceptive.