The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman

It’s a collection of his essays but the one quote that stuck out to me is:

I don’t see that it makes any point that someone in the Swedish Academy decides that this work is noble enough to receive a prize-I’ve already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding things out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it - those are the real things, the honors are unreal to me.

It really got me to get over external validation and doing things for the sake of discovery and learning.