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My answer to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4977647

Indeed that most of the times, reading that one so awesome article, sitting among intelligent people everyday, and life hacking, we aren't actually anywhere near actual success, though this road (based on numerous stories we think we know) does takes us eventually towards success, but you are right up till the point that yeah, that you have to actually make something out of that environment we are given to drive  our self towards our goals, achieving which is success (one and only)

But here on I disagree, that its not always a waste, here is a example:

A lot of times, like during college/school, you attend a lot of those counselling sessions, where this one guy comes and leaves you impressed, you walk out of the class saying, " man! that was awesome!" to your friend and forget about it eventually. When you think back you remember lot of such instances and wonder, "did I learn anything? " " was that useful" ?  The answer is yeah, you learned something, not consciously but subconsciously. We pick up lot of inputs that we do not notice, and imitate them a lot of times when the time comes.

Likewise, reading hundreds of stories, comics, articles, comments along the passage of time, we can't usually recall a lot of it, but subconsciously we pick up a lot of inputs from them.

Thus in the end, I feel, that yeah, you are right that one should do what he enjoys, and avoid what he doesn't sometimes, but in the end, if you read, say 100 articles about new businesses/entrepreneurs/etc, and don't wanna change your job, than so be it. Similarly, if you do want to start your own business than so be it, its important in the end that you should do whatever you want with tremendous zeal and passion.