My roommate tells me nearly every day: “I’m dumb.” Sometimes he uses variants, such as: “I’m stupid.”
I disagree, but that’s beside the point. Clearly, this kind of perspectives are a matter of opinion. But I do have a point I want to make: every time I hear him say something to the effect of “I’m not smart enough” or “Nobody wants me” (which he does quite often), I think of Paul Graham’s talk at Startup School 2007.
Here’s a screenshot of the slide he used:
Here’s a photo of Paul and an audio clip of the relevant portion (quality isn’t the best, but it gets the point across; less than one minute):
