WHERE I’M COMING FROM

Time is like a river that carries us forward into encounters with reality that require us to make decisions. 

We can’t stop our movement down this river and we can’t avoid those encounters. We can only approach them in the best possible way.

（我们不能逃避现实，只能以做好的方式去面对现实，解决遇到的问题）

When we are children, other people,typically our parents, guide us through our encounters with reality. 

As we get older, we begin to make our own choices. We choose what we are going after (our goals), and that influences our paths. 

If you want to be a doctor, you go to medical school; if you want to have a family, you find a mate; and so on. As we move toward these goals, we encounter problems, make mistakes, and run up against our own personal weaknesses. 

We learn about ourselves and about reality and make new decisions.

Over the course of our lives, we make millions and millions of decisions that are essentially bets, some large and some small.

 It pays to think about how we make them because they are what ultimately determine the quality of our lives.

（我们一生做无数的选择，选择有大有小，这些选择决定着自己的人生）

（个人想法：选择背后是一个人的 世界观 价值观 人生观 认知 等因素的体现，而每个人的三观以及认知是不同的，所以导致了选择的不同，有人可能说环境影响了一个人的选择，但是认真思考一下，一群人在面对同样的事情为什么会做出不同的选择呢？）

We are all born with different thinking abilities but we aren’t born with decision-making skills. 

We learn them from our encounters with reality.

While the path I went down is unique—being born to particular parents, pursuing a particular career, having particular colleagues—I believe that the principles I learned along the way will work equally well for most people on most paths. 

As you read my story, try to look through it and me to the underlying cause-and-effect relationships—at the choices I made and their consequences, what I learned from them, and how I changed the ways I make decisions as a result. 

（看事情的因果，以及作者从事物学到了什么，以及作者是如何运用自己所学的）

Ask yourself what you want, seek out examples of other people who got what they wanted, and try to discern the cause-and-effect patterns behind their achievements so you can apply them to help you achieve your own goals.

找到已经实现你的目标的人，看清楚他们背后的模式。（实际就是吸取别人的智慧，你想成为类似什么样的人，就去学习这些人）

To help you understand where I’m coming from, I am giving you an unvarnished account of my life and career, placing special emphasis on my mistakes and weaknesses and the principles I learned from them.