One of the hardest things for people to do is to objectively look down on themselves within their circumstances (i.e., their machine) so that they can act as the machine’s designer and manager. Most people remain stuck in the perspective of being a worker within the machine. If you can recognize the differences between those roles and that it is much more important that you are a good designer/manager of your life than a good worker in it, you will be on the right path. To be successful, the “designer/manager you” has to be objective about what the “worker you” is really like, not believing in him more than he deserves, or putting him in jobs he shouldn’t be in. Instead of having this strategic perspective, most people operate emotionally and in the moment; their lives are a series of undirected emotional experiences, going from one thing to the next. If you want to look back on your life and feel you’ve achieved what you wanted to, you can’t operate that way.
人们最难做的事情之一就是客观地俯视自己所处的环境（即他们的机器），以便他们能够充当机器的设计者和管理者。大多数人仍然停留在作为机器工人的观点上。如果你能够认识到这些角色之间的差异，并且认识到成为生活的优秀设计师/管理者比成为生活中的优秀工人更重要，那么你将走在正确的道路上。为了取得成功，“设计师/经理的你”必须客观地了解“你的工人”的真实情况，不要过度相信他，或者让他从事不应该从事的工作。从这个战略角度来看，大多数人都是情绪化的、活在当下的；他们的生活是一系列无方向的情感体验，从一件事到另一件事。如果你想回顾自己的一生并感觉自己已经实现了自己想要的目标，那么你就不能那样做。

source:https://www.principles.com/principles/4677236b-3de7-4008-9a14-8e02929c3e0d/