You sound exactly like my husband......however, he got the good grades through high school, then in college, he thought he was smarter than all the prof's except those in classes he liked so he wouldn't bother doing the work other than just enough to get by.....then he wondered why the company he was working for didn't want to hire him in a programming position........because his grades showed that he did enough to just get by & that wasn't the kind of programmer they wanted. He finally got a good position & that lasted while he felt good about the position......when that changed, he would go from company to company doing just enough to get by & then wondered why they didn't want to put him into a management position (yes, we all thought that management positions were for those who couldn't perform well.....raise to your highest level of incompetence).

Funny thing was that I was just the opposite of him (yes, we clashed because of it often & it did finally destroy the marriage)......I got the good grades but only because I worked my tail off to get the good grades, they didn't come easy. I always put more work into a class than was required but always learned more than was required also & really enjoyed learning (still do). My GPA got me several really good job offers even before graduation with my degree. Each job & put 200% of myself into (also my escape from my marriage) but I loved the programming engineering jobs I had.......funny thing is that even with my drive, when the industry collapsed, my career ended even before my husband's did......ended up in major depression because of it & wanted way too many times to end my life. Just goes to prove that having drive isn't what life is all about & being the best doesn't always assure success.

I sometimes think that having less drive would have kept me from having my loss of career feel less devistating......take things more in stride. I definitely know that having the drive I did, didn't buy me any kind of success. Would I go back I do anything differently.....probably not because my personality is more like a perfectionist (at some level) & I do still like to learn everything I can possibly learn about a subject whether it's something I will use of not.

But definitely being the straight A student didn't make life any better in the long run. Will I change because of it.....I doubt it. I think our drive is what it is & I think all we can do is the best we can given who we are & accept life we we deal with it.