I'm 24 and I think I seriously got dumber over the past few years. My job doesn't require much critical thinking as of now. It may get more difficult as more responsibilities get put onto me, but right now my job is more muscle memory rather than learning new things.

I was never really that smart to begin with, but my ability to reason through problems has seriously diminished. The last two semesters of college I was nearly unable to do anything but the simplest of problems in any of my classes, basically having to drop down to the bare minimum needed to graduate, which I barely did.

Recently I have been trying to get into the habit of self study in my spare time, and I find that my mental discipline is completely gone. I was never that smart but I was autistic enough to reread the textbook over and over again for the information needed to solve problems, but I can't do that anymore. I really want to convince myself that I just don't have the motivation to do this anymore now that I work and that I'm being unrealistic and trying to read entire chapters in a day because I feel like I have no time or energy to do anything but work, but I seriously think that I'm getting dumber.

Anyone here still self study or work on things as a wagie? How do you balance it without going insane or having unrealistic expectations?