To Be or To Do?

You want praise from people who kick themselves every 15 minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves?

Or, the other translation:

The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius By Marcus Aurelius, Meric Casaubon

Credit or Influence? When it comes to the two, I’m not really sure it’s even a question. Because credit really, doesn’t mean anything. The people you’d be seeking it from–if the analogy stays true–are precisely the people who had to fight so hard to prove wrong. It seems almost comical then that the ultimate validation would be for them to finally endorse it. That doesn’t make any more right. All throughout school, I was one of the smartest kids in the room but people rarely knew it. Look at where I ended up for college. Normally, the standards or the incentives would keep me quiet. But sometimes, it’d get shown and everyone would see. And guess what? It didn’t make me feel any better and it certainly didn’t improve the quality of my work.

Normally, it just made me angry and disillusioned. It was like “Now, you’re our equal. Welcome.” What good does that do me? What good does it do anyone? Boyd is totally right. At some point, you’ll come to a crucial point in your life when you have to decide if you want to be someone that does stuff, or talk about doing stuff, if your goal is action and progress or credit and accolades. I decided a long time about which route I was going to take every time I came to that fork. It puts you at peace and it saves you from the slavery of other people. The first thing you learn when truly open your eyes and look at the world as it is, for what it is, is that the people who you seem so willing to tie your happiness or correctness too, are stupid, unexamined and hypocritical.

Source: Two really good posts on Credit vs Influence and Contrarians always losing.