Paul Graham谈让好奇心驱动你，而不是声望或者竞争

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。下面是本文的第二十四部分摘录：

It’s ok to want to impress other people, but choose the right people. The opinion of people you respect is signal. Fame, which is the opinion of a much larger group you might or might not respect, just adds noise.

The prestige of a type of work is at best a trailing indicator and sometimes completely mistaken. If you do anything well enough, you’ll make it prestigious. So the question to ask about a type of work is not how much prestige it has, but how well it could be done.

Competition can be an effective motivator, but don’t let it choose the problem for you; don’t let yourself get drawn into chasing something just because others are. In fact, don’t let competitors make you do anything much more specific than work harder.

Curiosity is the best guide. Your curiosity never lies, and it knows more than you do about what’s worth paying attention to.

追求给他人留下好印象是可以的，但要选择正确的人。你尊重的人的意见是有价值的信号。名声，也就是来自一个更大群体的意见，你可能或可能不尊重，只会带来噪音。

某种工作的声望最多只能作为滞后指标，有时还会完全错误。如果你做到足够出色，就会使其变得有声望。所以，关于一种工作要问的问题不是它有多少声望，而是它能做得有多好。

竞争可以是一种有效的动力，但不要让竞争选择问题；不要因为别人在追逐某样东西而让自己被卷入其中。事实上，不要让竞争对你产生比更加努力工作更具体的要求。

好奇心是最好的指南。你的好奇心永远不会欺骗你，它对值得关注的事情了解得比你更多。