這篇文章 What You’ll Wish You’d Known 裡的一段

In fact I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they’d seem impressive, but not totally unlike your other friends.

Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that’s one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it’s not our fault if we can’t do something as good.

I’m not saying there’s no such thing as genius. But if you’re trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right.

覺得講得很好，稍微翻譯一下 😛

事實上我想，如果你和十六歲的莎士比亞或愛因斯坦就讀同個學校，他們或許看起來會令人印象深刻，但並不全然和你的其他朋友有所不同。

這是個讓人不舒服的想法。如果他們正和我們一樣，那麼他們必須非常勤奮才能做到他們所做到的事。而這是我們相信天分的一個理由。它給我們偷懶的藉口。如果那些了不起的人能做到他們所做的事，儘儘是因為某些神奇的莎士比亞特質或愛因斯坦特質，則我們不能成就某些和他們一樣傑出的事業就不是我們的錯。

我並不是說完全沒有天分這回事。但如果你試著在兩種想法之間作選擇，而其中一個給你偷懶的藉口，那麼另一個大概才是對的。

Update: 讀完了，作者這篇文章對象是高中生，不過就算已經不是高中生來看，還是很有啟發性的一篇文章。另外也不難了解為什麼沒有學校敢邀請他去演講….