Are you (or someone you love) very, very smart but way behind your friends and the people you know in your work and career? And way behind where you yourself thought you’d be at this point?

Do you have fantasies about what you’re going to be but somehow never get much closer — yet still tell yourself and everyone else that you will do it?

If you answered “yes” to the first question, that’s adult underachievement. And if you answered “yes” to the second, I call that “drifting.”

Underachievement and drifting are classic hallmarks of inattentive adult ADHD. And they can be tragic. I’ve worked with inattentive ADHDers who lost years, even decades, of what could have been their most productive years because of them. I’ve seen how underachievement and drifting caused them to lose all their hope and optimism, and even their enthusiasm for life, because their youthful hopes and dreams faded further and further into the rear-view mirror.

What causes underachievement and drifting? And what can be done about them?

I’m about to date myself, but here goes: Long long time ago in the days of black-and-white TV, there was a TV sitcom centered around a dude in college, called “Dobie Gillis.”

Dobie always struck me as a really bland character, but not his best friend, Maynard G. Krebs. You probably recognize the actor, because he’s Bob Denver, who became famous a few years later for playing Gilligan on “Gilligan’s Island.”

Maynard was a “beatnik.” Beatniks, for those of you who’ve never heard of them, were a sort of proto-hippie of the late ’50s and early ’60s. Male beatniks were always shown sporting a goatee and playing bongo drums.

At some point in every episode, there would be Maynard, sitting on the floor playing his bongos. Whenever anyone said the word “work,” he would yelp “WORK??!” like he’d just been stuck by a pin.

Can you relate? I know I could.

For many if not most inattentive ADDers, the thought of having to go to an office from 9 to 5 or 9 to 6, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, and deal with co-workers and deadlines and boss-dictated job expectations can sound totally stultifying and absolutely horrible – a death of the soul, a closing off of every option, and a recipe for misery, defeat, overwhelm, humiliation and absolute failure. “How do people put up with that?” is what the ADDer really thinks. “How can people live like that and have any kind of life?”

Hey, I get it. I felt exactly like that. It’s hardly a crazy way to think.

Unfortunately however, for many folks with Inattentive ADHD, years of feeling this way doesn’t result in a super-creative “off-the-grid” life. It just results in underachievement.

Underachievement is such a hallmark of Inattentive ADHD that if you’re over 30, don’t have a major alcohol or substance use problem, yet aren’t accomplishing close to what your intelligence and education would say you should, Inattentive ADD should probably be the first thing you or any therapist you go to should suspect.

If you have Inattentive ADD, you may have heard for years that you’re “lazy.” You may even call yourself that. You may be very upset with yourself that you’ve barely done anything with your “potential,” and it may be a source of shame and low self-esteem.

But the problem isn’t laziness. If only it were that simple!

All ADDers, but especially Inattentive ADDers, have a hard time sequencing the steps to get to any goal. But Inattentive ADDers have an additional challenge.

Because of the way your brain works, daydreaming about your goal satisfies the reward center in your brain too much, making you feel almost as though you have already reached it. At the same time, acting in the real, physical world to take a step toward a goal, such as making a phone call or filling out an application, can feel almost unbearably difficult and anxiety-provoking.

Yet settling for the structures of “ordinary” life feels horribly limiting, as though you are closing off all your options and stifling your true abilities.

The result is drifting, feeling as though you are, or soon will be, heading toward where you really should be, following that true life you have figured out in your mind, when in fact you’re not getting anywhere closer to it and haven’t for a very long time.

I am embarrassed to share this, but for three years of my life some decades ago, I didn’t do much more than imagine that I would start an alternative men’s magazine. I had the intelligence to create such a magazine, and I certainly had a vision, but I didn’t have anywhere near the skills to actually make it happen.

Nor did I have the ability to figure out what I didn’t know, or figure out the steps I needed to take, or the confidence to raise money and gain supporters. But for three years, though I did very little to bring it about, I believed I would do it and wouldn’t give up on my dream.

Taking stimulant medication helps, but it may not be enough. If you are someone with Inattentive ADD, see if you can gently face these problems inside yourself:

• The fear of being “boxed in” and having to work too much
• The tendency to substitute daydreaming about what you’re going to do for actually pursuing it
• The fear that your future boss or co-workers won’t like you or will be disappointed in you
• The difficulty with both figuring out and taking steps toward using your abilities.

If you can’t do it alone or with the support of people in your life, you may need to get some professional help.

The trouble you are going through is real. But please — don’t procrastinate this. Don’t keep thinking that you’ll “get to it.” Get some kind of help now.

You have a lot to give to the world.