This essay advises high school students to treat school as a day job while pursuing their real interests outside of class, rather than trying to fulfill fixed plans or optimize for college admissions. The author argues that instead of committing to long-term goals, students should work on hard problems that interest them, stay curious, and keep their options open—a strategy he calls 'staying upwind.' Success comes not from discipline or fixed dreams, but from deep curiosity about questions that make the world interesting, which students can begin cultivating immediately through self-directed projects.

• •High school students don't need to know what they want to do with their lives; they need to discover what interests them by working on things they like
• •The 'stay upwind' strategy—choosing options that maximize future possibilities rather than committing to fixed plans—is superior to pursuing predetermined dreams
• •Great work requires curiosity and interest rather than discipline; successful people procrastinate on things that don't interest them but are driven by questions they find compelling
• •The college admissions process is largely a charade run by people who aren't discerning enough to judge real intelligence, so students shouldn't design their lives around it
• •Students should treat high school as a day job and spend their real energy on self-directed projects that stretch them and build genuine skills

Shakespeare, Einstein, Mozart, Wittgenstein, G. H. Hardy, Henry Ford, Franz Beckenbauer, Maxwell, Samuel Johnson, Social Text