[raganwald]

Survivor bias is the phrase that comes to mind. The other one is "notoriety bias:" Only the stories with a spectacular ending get made into movies, so you read about the big successes and the big failures, but nothing in between.

[joshstrike]

Yeah, I know. Meanwhile, there's now an industry built on telling children their dreams really can come true if they accrue enough ycombinator karma. Way to harness that aptitude, baby.

edit: yeah, rate me down for telling you what you didn't want to hear. I'm not the one who throws $18k at a time down a well just to get a high school kid to suck up to me and think I'm a god.

[nostrademons]

I thought the point of the article was not to have dreams, but rather to be awake to the world around you, because much of the goodness in it will pass you by if you're fixated on something else.

[dannyr]

I seriously don't want to live in your world.

So what would you tell kids? Do not aspire for anything because chances are, you will likely fail.

You can choose how you look at things.

"For every good story, there is a bad story."

"For every bad story, there is a good story."

I choose the latter.