Several thoughts:

1. One of the commenters mentioned about being in the advanced class or with the kids down the hall. I’ve noticed that you may be in the advanced class at one point in life and with the kids down the hall at another. Your position can shift. It’s important to know where you are and what you plan to do about it.
2. Having a passion can help. I’m sure there are exceptions but I’ve noticed that the people with an intense interest in a particular subject soon became interested in learning in general.
3. Being determined to learn in spite of your teachers. This is crucial because you’ll encounter some lousy ones.
4. Asking for help. This is a major regret of mine. I wound up getting a J.D. but my entire academic career would have been easier if I’d sought assistance from more people, if only to get their insight on the basics. Later in life, I’ve learned how generous people can be with their knowledge.

Yes, it’s true; I do have a Doctorate, although the aspiration bloomed late. (Motto: I may not be smart, but at least I’m slow!) I think it came from watching The Muppet Show. I suddenly thought it would be cool to be called “Dr. Bob”.

I absolutely agree with you that whether you care or not determines a huge part of your success in life.

I don’t necessarily think though that if you didn’t care in school, then you’re doomed to a life of mediocrity. First of all, success is a funny word. Whether or not you feel successful depends entirely on your definition of success. You may not have a prestigious or well-paying job but still feel that you are happy and successful. The reverse is also true. The key is to determine what success means to you, personally, and live that version of it.

Second, educational systems are funny environments. They are not necessarily built to encourage the development of everyone’s innate gifts and talents. They exist to impart a particular amount of knowledge and then let you go. It may very well happen that the school you went to didn’t tap into your particular talents and may, in fact, have discouraged them.

It may also be the case that you are not naturally predisposed to being organized and following rules. If you are familiar with Myers-Briggs, you know that there are people who are naturally inclined to be organized, and there are those who aren’t – no value judgment, just natural preferences. Would it serve you well to cram yourself full of information that doesn’t light your fire? Maybe and maybe not. Would it serve you well to try and fit yourself into a particular mold when you are really somebody else on the inside? It depends on your perspective. I personally believe that we do much better in life – and live much happier lives – when we can play to our natural strengths, rather than trying to fit somebody else’s vision of how we should be. (I could write 15,000 more words on this subject but won’t. Aren’t you glad?)

That said, I’m also a firm believer that we have an opportunity to recreate ourselves every day and every moment. I’m coming at it not so much from that glorious American belief that you can reinvent yourself and become wildly successful at any time. My view is shaped primarily by Buddhist philosophy that suggests that every moment we live is new and fresh, and in each of those moments we have a choice to leave our past conditioning behind and choose, in full freedom, how we want to be in the world.

In other words, just because we were “too cool to learn” at school and have shaped our identity around that doesn’t mean that right now we can’t shed that identity and become something else. The key question is: who do you want to be today, right now?

See, the world is full of people whose brilliance revealed itself late in life. (Grandma Moses is one of the best-known examples.) And if you are one of them, does it mean that the preceding years were a waste? I emphatically don’t think so. The question is not so much what happened to you in the past but what lessons you learned from your experiences and how you are applying them in the present. And to take it to an even bigger perspective: Whatever is happening to you, are you using your life’s material to progress on that ultimate path of becoming a fully evolved human being? (And well, that’s a whole other subject…)

I think I’ll stop here… I apologize for the length and hope this was useful in some way. I really do need to learn to be brief, if only out of compassion for my readers. I was just thinking about this after my latest, 1500-word post on my blog…