Naval Ravikant0:30
Yeah. So passion. Okay. So my answer on these things is usually not, uh, find out what you're most passionate about. That's actually a very unimaginative answer, and that's the really old answer where it's like people will either say, you know, your parents will say do what's practical, and all the books will say do what you love. I don't think either is actually quite correct. I think the way that I like to phrase it, which is nuanced and it's important to get the whole thing, is you want to find what feels like play to you but looks like work to others. So both of those are true. Both of those have to be simultaneously true. So feels like play to you is the what you're passionate about part. So you'll naturally be good at it. You're into it. You're curious about it. You enjoy doing it. But looks like work to others. That is equally important. That means that in society, that thing is seen as work by other people, and therefore it is likely to have some value. So you want to find the intersection of those two. And that's not easy. I'm not saying you're necessarily going to find it trivially, nor that you're going to find it on a timeline. When you're in college, one of the false dichotomies of college is this idea that you're expected to decide on your career that you're going to do for the next 10, 20, 50, 100 years, whatever, through a path during this very short couple of year stint. And unfortunately, I think we lock people into lifetimes of drudgery where they basically say, well, I'm going to go be a lawyer. They go to law school, now they're locked into law, whether they love the law or not, or the practice of law or not, or investment banking or medicine or what have you. These are straight jackets. It's like too early, especially now as careers have gotten longer and people live longer, getting them to commit for their entire lives based on this short stint is too much. So I would say, you know, especially at your age and given that you're in computers and you're basically coding, don't overthink it. Just build things. Just build whatever you feel like. Build toys, build apps for yourself. Just do whatever you enjoy. Now, to most people, sitting in front of a computer and writing code looks like work. So almost anything you do in front of a computer, especially with code that is fun to you, that feels like play to you, satisfies the criteria. So I would say just code for fun. If you code for fun, you will eventually find your way to something you're passionate about and that you can make money in. Now I think that's somewhat unique to you because you have the luxury of time because you're very young. Even though I know in college they pressure you and it may feel like you don't have that luxury of time, you really do have the luxury of time. And the second reason is because you're coding. If you're coding in computer science and cognitive science, you're good at using the tool that is the most powerful tool ever invented by humanity that gives you permissionless leverage. So you're actually way ahead of the curve. Unfortunately, most people when they ask these kinds of questions, my answer starts with some variant of learn to code, which I hate to say it because I don't want to be glib. I know it's not an easy thing to do, but at the same time, it's like if you were alive when literacy was first getting widespread and you were not literate, someone who really has your best interest at heart would tell you, hey, go learn to read and write. It's just too important to not do it. So in the same way, when numeracy was becoming more widespread, they would say, hey, go become good at mathematics. Now literacy and numeracy are prerequisites for programming. So now I can just say go program, because it means you have to be literate, you have to be numerate, and you have to be familiar with the best tool that we've ever invented where you can permissionlessly create and extract leverage. So I think you're already most of the way there. You just need to code for fun. So hope that answers your question.
