If you could design yourself before you were born whose mental physical emotional spiritual DNA would you have preferred to yours?

Good for you sweetie! Being appreciative of and grateful for what you have/whom you are is absolutely a key to being happy. I am glad that you feel that way ru. That means you don't waste your life focusing on what you lack. Rather you use what you have to the best of your ability. I wish I were smarter. I wish I could understand things that make no sense to me at all. Everywhere I turn I question things because they just seem so absurd and riddikkalus and inexplicable. Now if I were smarter there is no guarantee I'd understand what I don't but I'd sure like a chance to try it out and see. I'm grateful and appreciative of my circumstances. They could be so much worse. But I wistfully wonder what it would have been like to be a genius? SIGH. Thank you for your reply and Happy Sunday to you ru!  :)

I am appreciative of and grateful for my circumstances in life tom. They could have been so much worse.  But every day in every way I am driven MAD (nuts) by the seeming senseless illogical inexplicable doings/saying I encounter that others seem to embrace. If I were a genius I think I'd have a chance at understanding more. Hopefully understanding more and better and  bigger would help to calm me down. I get so upset at the drivel and gibberish that we have to deal with. But I wonder is it really as bad as I think it is or is it just that I can't  comprehend/understand enough? Is it my own limitations that drive me bonkers? I'd like to give it a try with a really smart brain and see if it would make any difference? Would I be driven mad faster or would I understand? Well it's moot. I can't know what I will never have a chance to experience. I don't know if being a  genius insures happiness. I'm gonna ask. Thank you for your thoughtful answer and Happy Sunday! :)

You're preaching to the choir, Rosie. But every day in every way I am driven MAD (nuts) by the seeming senseless illogical inexplicable doings/saying I encounter that others seem to embrace.

Our youngest boy just commented to me the other day, "What do you do when you realize you are the smartest person in the room?"---I just smiled at him---He smiled back.

That is the main reason I have neither admiration nor esteem for a much larger number of answers I read on any question and answer site---precisely because I do respect all answers (i.e., give them the due regard that they deserve); unfortunately, some have no real value.  And trust me, being a genius does not make it easier to understand why some people think that 2+2=5 in base 10.

And GK Chesterton one commented that the person inside the insane asylum is there because he tried to get the universe inside his head; while the poet was satisfied to simply get his head inside the universe.

Truth exists and is the proper object of study.  The more truth you acquire, the less room you have for error. This post was edited by tom jackson at February 18, 2019 6:31 AM MST

Dagnabbit tom! So being a genius doesn't really help that much? Dagnabbit! I thought it would but it doesn't. OK. Oh. I know we're mostly on the same page. Sometimes I just have to state the obvious to placate/satisfy my brain which is constantly teeming with whys. Literally if I don't ask I think I shall go mad so I keep talking. Well maybe when the don is gone I can settle down. Providing I last that long. And as you describe '"respect"..giving something its due regard...I am unable to do that as well so in any definition of respect I don't and can't respect gibberish. I wonder how intellect influences feelings/reactions/actions? I'm gonna ask. Thank you for your thought reply once again. :) This post was edited by RosieG at February 21, 2019 6:58 AM MST

To give something its "due regard" is to evaluate it, and if it's essentially bovine excrement to label it as such.

Respect comes from respicere (Latin--to look back; essentially, to see clearly).  Over the years it has come to include positive feelings of admiration and esteem for what is being said.  

That is truly unfortunate.  Admiration and esteem used to be words that allowed us to separate stupid opinions from those that actually made sense and were insightful and helpful.

Like the saying goes, increase the extension of a term or word and you decrease the comprehension of that term or word.

I gotta remember that one tom. "...bovine excrement". It's exquisite m'dear. Very classy way to talk about well you know. I guess there is also porcine excrement too. I suppose the hitch is one's definition of "due". What does "due" mean to you? How long must one give due respect to something before you decide whether or not your time was well spent? I do it at a glance and in some cases I look at the source and read no farther/further because past experience has shown me it will be to no avail. It will be horse excrement (I don't know the fancy scientific name..I thought it was equus but I looked it up in the dictionary and nothing is there. Now wasn't there a stage play titled EQUUS and wasn't that about a horse and a boy? But I digress).  Thank you for your reply tom and Happy Thursday!  :)

Due---a person's right; what is owed to someone.

At my age and my knowledge and experience level, I claim the ability to quickly and correctly evaluate opinions relative to things I have more than a passing familiarity with on Q & A sites.

Thank you for your reply and the link tom. EQUINE is what I should have written. EQUINE excrement. The link gave me all I will never need or want to know bout horsesh** which is to say not  a whole lot. Happy Sunday.

Different strokes. I would like to be smarter kinder and far more patient. You wouldn't. There ya have it. People are diffrunt. Thank you for your reply and Happy Sunday. Another question ariseth from this exchange.