[April 29, 2026] Learning your limitations can be tough on the ego. My first big clue that I wasn’t “smart” came in 7th grade history class. The teacher assigned us to memorize the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
We couldn’t argue with him. Memorizing stuff was normal back then—like learning the ABCs, counting to 100, or saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn’t like it, but I was just a kid from the Deep South.
The Preamble has 52 words. We learned it sets out the Constitution’s main goals and guiding principles. The teacher made us practice saying it after gym class. We had no idea why.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
—Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, approved September 17, 1787.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t memorize those 52 words. I’d always mix them up and spit out nonsense. If Candid Camera had been there, I would’ve been the laughingstock of junior high.
Kids who struggle with this often have learning difficulties like dyslexia, ADHD, or working memory challenges. Back in the early 1960s, I was just “dumb.” I had trouble staying focused. Maybe it was a mental thing, or maybe I was just distracted by what was happening outside the classroom or thinking about playing with my dog.
Later in school, I worked hard to find other ways to learn. Counterintuitively, discovering my weakness eventually helped me. It pushed me to use different strategies, tools, and my strengths. I turned out to be good at understanding processes and systems. Once I put information into those systems, I could remember much better.
When you realize you’re not “smart,” maybe it’s time to start looking at strategies to overcome the weaknesses you possess.
Albert Einstein gives us a hint in how to overcome not being smart, even though he was a genius. “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
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Just like all of us. We all thought we were geniuses but found out the opposite, we are stupid.
SIr, I think all of us have been in that situaiton.
Gen. Satterfield and I grew up around the same time, so we have a similar view on things. Most of us then, we treated in such a way to both make us stronger and to be thankful for what little we got. Today most young folks are a bunch of spoiled kids with too much easy living. They are not grateful. They hate having to work for anything because they’ve been given everything for free. And, worse, our schools are playing off that fact and no longer educating them. Schools are now more concerned about getting the pronouns right for every student than teaching them the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, and thinking.
Nailed it Dale, and our political system, esp. the Democrat Party, supports stupidity as well.
All thumbs up Gen. Satterfield. Once again, you’ve taken us back to our time as kids.
Nice, thanks Gen. Satterfield for your humble pie. It is always a good thing to have a little humility when you are not so sure of your full strengths. In this case, you’ve put your finger on the same weakness many of us have. Remember, like Einstein say, stick with the problem. Don’t let it go. Eventually you might just figure it out.
Oh, sisters, let me tell you: this piece by Gen. Satterfield had me nodding so hard my feminist ancestors probably felt the ripple. Here’s a man owning up to bombing the Preamble in seventh grade like it was a bad Tinder date—52 words that refused to stick, proving once and for all that “smart” is just society’s favorite participation trophy. What a deliciously subversive flex: admitting you’re not the golden boy of rote memorization, yet still building a life of leadership and insight. As a feminist, I adore watching anyone dismantle the myth that intelligence is a fixed, male-coded crown you either wear or don’t. Instead of sulking in the corner of “dumb kid from the Deep South,” he engineered workarounds, leaned into systems thinking, and basically hacked his own brain—talk about reclaiming agency in a world that loves to label us. His story is peak resilience porn: the moment you realize the traditional rules don’t fit you is exactly when you start rewriting them with flair. And that Einstein nod? Chef’s kiss. Staying with problems longer isn’t genius; it’s the stubborn, witty refusal to let a 52-word patriarchy (or Constitution, same difference) define your worth. We feminists have been saying it forever—intelligence isn’t a solo male superpower, it’s a collective, adaptive, beautifully messy toolkit. So bravo to this author for turning an ego bruise into a leadership blueprint; may we all be so bravely “not smart” and brilliantly resourceful. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to memorize nothing and conquer everything.
Ouch, Paulette, you’re all over it. Nice wit.
Ha Ha, another classic from Gen. Satterfield. In this case he is showing us that we can “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” and succeed. He got slapped in the face early in life about his intelligence, and then progressively worked other strategies to overcome. Many would have stopped right there and quit or gone into criminal behavior. We can assume, I think correctly, taht it was his religious Christian background that prevented him from going into crime but to instead push ahead anyway and find other means of getting his jobs done.
Better to realize this early in life and be disappointed than to be an adult and ignore the reality.