kevinhiggins.org

What You'll Wish You'd Known

This article, by Paul Graham, eminent computer scientist, author, painter, and dot-com millionaire, is a worthwhile read for anyone who's been there and done that, but never found a good way to articulate it to a younger generation in a meaningful way.

The article begins: "I'll start by telling you something you don't have to know in high school: what you want to do with your life. People are always asking you this, so you think you're supposed to have an answer. But adults ask this mainly as a conversation starter. They want to know what sort of person you are, and this question is just to get you talking. They ask it the way you might poke a hermit crab in a tide pool, to see what it does.

If I were back in high school and someone asked about my plans, I'd say that my first priority was to learn what the options were. You don't need to be in a rush to choose your life's work. What you need to do is discover what you like. You have to work on stuff you like if you want to be good at what you do."

Read the rest: http://paulgraham.com/hs.html

Posted by khiggins at January 22, 2005 07:20 AM | TrackBack