I've always found it odd that when most people look back on their years of elementary school, they remember having mostly positive experiences. Those years weren't particularly bad for me, not for any specific reason. However, after a little bit of thinking, recently, I think I've figured out why I hated that time in my life so much.

The typical day of school consisted of a lot of work. To start the day off, there would be several activities that I'd have to do. That included putting words in alphabetical order, writing out vocabulary words 5 times each, doing simple math problems, or other things of the like. I dreaded every last moment of it. Every day, I couldn't wait for it to be over with.

It's like this. Here, solve this subtraction problem. Show all your work. Then do addition to check your work. Then, if it's wrong, fix it. Sound fun? Oh, I bet you wanted to do this forty times tonight for homework!

Y'know, there's something about that just never settled well with me.

It's not just math, though. During that same time, I was also reading on a high enough level that most of the books recommended for me were chapter books—long, thick, and in the hundreds of pages. When I was in the second grade, I was reading on a fifth grade level. However, I didn't have the attention span of a fifth grader. When I was forced to check out those higher level books, I couldn't bring myself to read them. Reading so many pages just seemed tedious to me, and it made me dread reading... even though it was something I was supposedly good at.

In the second grade, I was also given a placement test at the end of the year. My teacher told me that it didn't matter how I scored, I would still move on to the third grade. With that in mind, I did not take the test too seriously. On the reading portion, I just wouldn't read. I answered what I knew without reading, and left the rest open to my most educated guesses. On the math portion, I did a similar thing. I answered the questions that had obvious answers, and if I was required to solve something, I just wouldn't do it.

It wasn't that I just couldn't do it, mind you. I just couldn't make myself do it.

As it turned out, my scores on that test were very poor. However, my score for "critical thinking" or something similar to that still ranked high. This confused the hell out of my teachers, parents, and principal... but that's not the point here.

The point is, there's a pattern. It wasn't just the second grade. In the fourth grade, I learned that I didn't always have to do my work. I basically christmas-treed everything that I did, and then I would lie to my parents and say that I didn't have homework.

My thought process was something similar to this. Show my work? Pfft! I know how to do this, but it's too much work. I have to add like 30 numbers and then divide that by 30... all by hand? No way. Forget that! The answer is probably somewhere between 40 and 50, so I'm gonna guess the answer is 42. That's probably it. Woo! I'm done!

In fifth grade, I got even worse. I became so lazy that I wouldn't do my math homework without a simple 4 function calculator. If my homework asked me to answer a question, I would never write it out in complete sentences, and use abbreviations wherever possible. For example, if the answer was "hinge joint and ball and socket joint," I would instead write "h, b." I remember that one in particular.

I wasn't lazy enough to forgo doing the homework completely. I would still think about the question, and provide the right answer. But when it came to the tedious part—running a calculation or writing a sentence—I would take shortcuts.

In my later years of school, I continued that same pattern. As soon as it became acceptable for me to use a graphing calculator on assignments and tests, I went from the bottom to the top of my class in math. As soon as I was required to read long books in school, I developed an even greater hatred of literature.

Oddly, though, once I started learning a little bit of computer programing, I found that I really liked it. Whereas most people would only write the most basic code to do the process required, I would dedicate all my time to going above and beyond the requirements, so that my code is organized, clean, and has additional, unrequested functions. In all honesty, I did it because I thought it was fun. That was like my forte.

So, this all brings me to a question. Why is it that I was more than willing to create an algorithm to complete a simple task, but when I am asked to do a simple task, I just can't make myself do it?

What prompted me to think of this is what I'm doing today. You see, I have a differential equations test tomorrow. I can't use a calculator on the test. When I do the homework, which doesn't need to be turned in, all I do is check to make sure I understand the process. All the numerical computations and algebra... well, I kinda skip that part.

And I noticed something. Of all the homework problems that I've done... of all the hours I've spent studying, not once did I ever fully solve any of the equations. Without even realizing it, once I get that far into the problem I stop and say "that's good enough, the rest I can just put into the calculator."

Now, most people would probably look at this and say I'm lazy—especially my parents, teachers, and that generation. But is that really the case? Is this laziness, or something else entirely?

I think I just have this aversion to doing tedious things. If something can be done by a computer, like copying a paragraph, putting a list in alphabetical order, citing a book, solving an equation, or anything of the like... I don't understand why I have to do it.

And so I don't do it. Not unless I can make a computer do it, or not unless you're holding a knife to my throat.

Am I the only one? It sure seems like it, because most people don't complain about having to do tedious things anywhere near as much as I do. In fact, I've never met anyone who would go as far as to lie and cheat as much as I did, just to keep from doing something that's actually simple and easy.

I know I kinda think differently from most people, but could this be it? Is it that what's easy for me (critical thinking) is hard for most people, and what's hard for me (working out simple, algorithmic processes) is easy for most people?