My biggest disagreement with life in general, and I now believe this is the fundamental difference between how my brain operates and how the average NT brain does, is how things are prioritized.

In my brain, things are prioritized per their material utility. If something has immediate utility, a visible benefit to someone, or if it's solving a pressing problem, they are on top of the importance list. It may sound like a callous way to put it but health related, life saving action is categorized in the "high material utility" bin for my brain.

In addition to this prioritization, I also tend to equate difficulty of a task with its perceived importance. "If something is very important, then the stakes must be high also" my brain says. On the flipside, if I know something is trivial to accomplish physically, it's not "important" in my brain.

In the life made by NTs for NTs, most "very important" things are trivial to the extreme. Bureaucratic paperwork, deadlines, remembering birthdays, most jobs are just mindless busywork to me, with no perceived importance whatsoever, but somehow they seem potent enough to stop the world in its tracks for the majority of people.

This creates enormous stress for me, and is responsible for most of my burnouts in my 50 year life. The dichotomy between my sense of priority and that of the world around me.

When I was still in my PhD program, the work I did, the information I and my team uncovered were the priority for me. The integrity of the work was paramount. Increasingly, through the feedback I received from my advisor, I started feeling like something was wrong and the real thing to focus on should have been how I marketed my research and my efforts rather than the work and the results themselves. This led to my burnout and me leaving before I defended my dissertation.

I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this topic. Do you also think your version of what's important is fundamentally different than the world's?

#ActuallyAutistic @actuallyautistic

@CynAq

The bit about the Ph.D. resonates with me. I defended mine, but still.

It seems to me that the notion that people are valued according to *merit* does not hold.

People are valued according to *popularity*, and whether that has anything to do with *merit* is quite uncertain.

Some people are popular and do incredible research.

Some people are popular and fudge everything, but they are good at marketing. Witness the spate of paper retractions and people in high positions stepping down.

My priorities are often at odds with what the rest of the world prioritizes.

@actuallyautistic

@CynAq

Actually, our discussion about degrees reminded me of something that a lot of people find very important, but that I couldn't care less about.

Graduations and diplomas.

I've not been to the majority of my graduations. I did not go to my formal high-school graduation. However, I was at the informal graduation. After that, however, I had 4 or 5 other graduations, and I wasn't around any of them.

I do have some of my diplomas. However, I never got the piece of paper that proves I have a Ph.D. What would I do with it? Put in on a wall, and brag??? I know this is very important to some people. Not to me. I did my Ph.D. My school can verify it. A piece of paper changes nothing.

I'll say generally speaking "bragging rights" don't mean much to me. I'm baffled by people who spend large sums of money on dubious products only to be able to brag about the purchase. Some people are impressed. I'm not.

@actuallyautistic