Paul Graham谈专注自我，不以物喜，不以己悲

美国著名程序员、博客作者和技术作家保罗·格雷厄姆（Paul Graham）在其个人网站上的长文《How to do great work》给仍然雄心勃勃的年轻人提了一些建议，适合每位对自己仍有期望的朋友反复阅读。下面是本文的第十八部分摘录：

Don’t think of yourself as dependent on some gatekeeper giving you a “big break.” Even if this were true, the best way to get it would be to focus on doing good work rather than chasing influential people.

And don’t take rejection by committees to heart. The qualities that impress admissions officers and prize committees are quite different from those required to do great work. The decisions of selection committees are only meaningful to the extent that they’re part of a feedback loop, and very few are.

不要认为自己依赖某些权威人士为你提供一个”大机会”。即使这是真的，获得这个机会的最佳方式也是专注于做好自己的工作，而不是追逐有影响力的人。

不要对委员会的拒绝感到灰心。让招生官员和奖项评审团印象深刻的品质与做出优秀工作所需的品质是完全不同的。选拔委员会的决定只有在它们是反馈循环的一部分时才具有意义，而这样的委员会非常少。