Some good advice
Just picked up a new book and found the following advice in the forward:
“While learning something new, many students will think, ‘Damn, this is hard for me. I wonder if I am stupid.’ Because stupidity is such an unthinkably terrible thing in our culture, the students will then spend hours constructing arguments that explain why they are intelligent yet are having difficulties. The moment you start down this path, you have lost your focus.
“I used to have a boss named Rock. Rock had earned a degree in astrophysics from Cal Tech and had never had a job in which he used his knowledge of the heavens. Once I asked him whether he regretted getting the degree. ‘Actually, my degree in astrophysics has proven to be very valuable,’ he said. ‘Some things in this world are just hard. When I am struggling with something, I sometimes think “Damn, this is hard for me. I wonder if I am stupid,” and then I remember that I have a degree in astrophysics from Cal Tech; I must not be stupid.’"