Smart

SMART: adjective

-quick or prompt in action, as persons.
-having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability: a smart student.
-clever, witty, or readily effective, as a speaker, speech, rejoinder, etc.
My parents have been deliberate in telling me my whole life "you are smart."  I was hesitant to use this label for myself for obvious reasons. For one thing, I have met hundreds of people and heard of thousands others that are smarter than I, in various different ways, so it has sort of lost any significance. Also it seems a bit puffed up, "I have a superior intellect!"  I sound like Megamind.
The main reason I'll say it is because really it is not necessarily a compliment to me.  I'd rather be wise than smart, and I certainly haven't achieved that status yet. Being smart doesn't mean I don't royally mess up sometimes.  I've made my share of mistakes; I'm under the opinion that even the smartest people in the world still make mistakes. What we are here for is to learn, and mistakes can be profited by. At any rate being smart doesn't mean I'm not also a dummy sometimes too.
I also dare own this description due to the fact that I've learned intelligence comes with a price.  Having the capability to over-analyze caused me much misery, and as my journals confirm, it caused me to be quite judgmental for a very long time. It also gives one a sense of importance and significance that other people just don't appreciate, which is hard to endure when you feel looked over, and then harder to endure once you realize you're not that important and significant, at least any more than anyone else, and you have to be careful that proving that to yourself is not your motivating driving force. Oh to be wise instead of smart!
Lastly, being considered smart sometimes creates a lot of pressure to do everything right, which is a mental health recipe for disaster, and when I discuss 2005 you will read about just such a disaster.
God created me anyway, I can't take credit for brains so I feel it no harm to share what abilities He blessed me with.  As a child I showed evidence early on of having intellectual abilities, i.e. musical talents, being a fast reader, and having a love of learning. 
My mother told me a story about when I was 3 years old she was sewing something and was having trouble threading the needle for some reason, and I came up and said, "I can do that." She frustratedly handed it over, saying "Oh yeah, go ahead and try."  I slipped the thread through the tiny needle head first try. I'm not sure how this makes me smart, but it made my mom think so, and she always told me this story to prove it. Fine motor skills genius? Object-space relations savvy? Good at art? I don't know, but when you are raised with the message that you are smart, it pushes you to become so.
I sang a song in school at age 6 ("With a Smile and a Song," I still know every word) memorized perfectly in tune.  Thanks to my mother's musical gifts and teaching I've been able to read music from an early age, and although I wouldn't say I have "perfect" pitch, I have always been able to stay in tune and can pick out immediately when someone is off pitch, and I was singing songs without the melody in the accompaniment since I was a little girl. My mom thought this was so delightful, and had me singing solos in church whenever opportunity presented itself.  Music has come naturally to me and I learned the piano, flute, guitar, and in my later years choir and voice (when I tried out for Women’s chorus at BYU and failed I realized that some professional training for vocal abilities is needed even for the most natural lover of singing).  I've often thanked the Lord for making me musically talented.
My mom read us books nearly every day, so I've always loved reading. I remember in 3rd grade, 8 years old, sitting down in my class at school and reading the first "Little House" book of the series and loving every word, and I couldn't wait to read the rest. I thought this was normal until my own kids couldn't abide the idea of reading a “boring” book like that at age 8.  I became a fast reader and had a good memory; never the straight A student, but not because of lack of intelligence, because of lack of desire. There always seemed to be something else more important than school that would come up now and again, like rest, play, vacations, service, friends, babysitting, church, etc.  I didn't measure my intelligence with GPA, I measured it with moderation. Nevertheless I do love to learn, and that love of learning got me through a master's degree while mothering 3 young children.  Although the thought of doing a PhD is too much for me, there are many other ways to continue learning, which I am now attempting in the vein of health and nutrition.
"He who invades the domain of knowledge must approach it as Moses came to the burning bush; he stands on holy ground; he would acquire things sacred.  --J. Reuben Clark