<story><title>What I Worked On</title><url>http://paulgraham.com/worked.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xapata</author><text>&amp;gt; So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.&lt;p&gt;Equally plausible is that we only write quotations from the people whose dots serendipitously connected.</text></item><item><author>nostrademons</author><text>This is a good essay.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting to contrast it with some of the psychological&amp;#x2F;self-help literature around being your &amp;quot;true self&amp;quot;, where the true self is fluid and amorphous and avoids being rigidly defined.  Or with Drew Houston&amp;#x27;s commmencement address [1] - &amp;quot;That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little voice knows best.&amp;quot;  Or Steve Jobs [2] - &amp;quot;Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. 
 So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t ignore your emotions, particularly the niggling feelings that make you do things that seem to have no purpose in your grand plans but nevertheless draw you along.  Don&amp;#x27;t ignore reality either - that&amp;#x27;d be putting art galleries online - but oftentimes our subconscious has a better grip on reality than we give it credit for.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.mit.edu&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;drew-houstons-commencement-address&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.mit.edu&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;drew-houstons-commencement-address&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;singjupost.com&amp;#x2F;full-transcript-steve-jobs-stay-hungry-stay-foolish-speech-at-stanford-2005&amp;#x2F;?singlepage=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;singjupost.com&amp;#x2F;full-transcript-steve-jobs-stay-hungr...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Aloha</author><text>I mean, they have for all of us at some point.&lt;p&gt;No, not for great wealth perhaps, but using myself as an example - the fact that I&amp;#x27;m in my own apartment across the country from where I grew up, with an engineering job, that pays well enough for me to afford an expensive pocket computer cum telephone to write this on - anyone of those things alone would have blown the mind of 18 year old me - all three of them as one combined train is astonishing in hindsight. If I look at all the just that I&amp;#x27;ve done in the last 20 years, I&amp;#x27;m ought to be astonished, I&amp;#x27;ve been stupendously lucky.&lt;p&gt;Now for a moment, look at all the dots connected to get where we are technologically over the last, 20, 40, 80, 120 years. For example just in communications, In 120 years we went from messages for the average person taking months to span the globe, to a situation where the average person in any country, can phone another average person in most any other country at anytime day or night without difficulty - that alone is astonishing to me. Never mind all the other improvements we&amp;#x27;ve watched blink into existence.&lt;p&gt;The dots connect for everyone, some folks just get more of them.</text></comment>
<story><title>What I Worked On</title><url>http://paulgraham.com/worked.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xapata</author><text>&amp;gt; So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.&lt;p&gt;Equally plausible is that we only write quotations from the people whose dots serendipitously connected.</text></item><item><author>nostrademons</author><text>This is a good essay.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting to contrast it with some of the psychological&amp;#x2F;self-help literature around being your &amp;quot;true self&amp;quot;, where the true self is fluid and amorphous and avoids being rigidly defined.  Or with Drew Houston&amp;#x27;s commmencement address [1] - &amp;quot;That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little voice knows best.&amp;quot;  Or Steve Jobs [2] - &amp;quot;Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. 
 So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t ignore your emotions, particularly the niggling feelings that make you do things that seem to have no purpose in your grand plans but nevertheless draw you along.  Don&amp;#x27;t ignore reality either - that&amp;#x27;d be putting art galleries online - but oftentimes our subconscious has a better grip on reality than we give it credit for.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.mit.edu&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;drew-houstons-commencement-address&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.mit.edu&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;drew-houstons-commencement-address&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;singjupost.com&amp;#x2F;full-transcript-steve-jobs-stay-hungry-stay-foolish-speech-at-stanford-2005&amp;#x2F;?singlepage=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;singjupost.com&amp;#x2F;full-transcript-steve-jobs-stay-hungr...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mizzao</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s a good argument why the dots will connect eventually as long as you keep doing interesting things. One of my favorite books: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;davidepstein.com&amp;#x2F;the-range&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;davidepstein.com&amp;#x2F;the-range&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>