'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
当你只有一天可以活的时候你会做什么……我真恨中国人的中庸之道，有时候我们需要的并不是能够活的更长久或者更舒适，我们更多的需要一种信念，和一种能够让一头驴子只朝一个方向跑的东西。可各种各样的妥协、皆大欢喜充斥着我们的生活——最近我身边的每一张嘴都在重复抱怨-妥协的模式——是啊，没错，这就是东方人的生活方式，我好想大声喊出来我之所以肯去读补习班、去考试完全不是为了满足某些人迫切希望我出国念书的愿望——我只是为了让wiki和google...这个cyberspace在我手里发挥他们最大的利用价值。
这些话……直到一直作为我精神上最后的那一根救命稻草的那个家伙也没能摆脱这个怪圈为止，我都没仔细想过……可是现在真的是我认识的所·有人，全都赌上自己的那点有限的时间去博取除了自己的什么其他人高兴的状况了。这种时候，你不能不开始偏激的认为也许像美国大小孩那种傻了吧唧的思维方式和难以理解的不计后果说不定是件好事。pixar和apple computer属于（或者说属于过）同一个人，而这家伙连大学都没有毕业。虽然我们都很清楚的知道像这些经典案例绝大多数都是不可复制的，但是……难道没人思考过为什么温州或者义乌、东莞或者深圳之流产不出一个半个Jobs来？
没错……我们只有只知道从山寨起家的农民企业家。
而恰恰是这帮“即使输也输不到哪去大不了回家种地”的人，成就了今天我们所见的长三角和珠三角两个经济中心。
而问题就出在，他们有的是胆量，缺乏的是胆识。不过这样也好，我们这群看起来似乎很有良心很理智受过程度以上教育的人，连胆量都没有。
有时候我真希望自己是个农民。
我拟人了……掩面。
=======================掩面分隔线====================
当他推开门的时候，看到的是那蓝色的家伙正把什么东西望衣袋里塞。
“省省吧别藏了我看见了，说你的飞行速度能超过3马赫，不是说动作速度”
TC倏的转过身去，一脸愠色的把塞了一半的手帕拽出来丢地下
“怎么了？”
“不用你管”
“泪痕很明显，下次记得听见有人进来先擦干净，比别别扭扭的藏东西要容易蒙混过去”
“是自然干的，我没注意”
“别告诉我那是因为没关机舱盖吹得迎风流泪”
“……”
“还不打算说？”
“……呛的”
闹翻天愣了一下，不是因为这个有点离谱的回答，而是这个回答太有创意，突然的让人不知道怎么马上调侃回去
“？”
于是他准备认真一点
“被血味，呛的”
“………………orz”又是这个老生常谈的……话题，紫色的那只心想，自打他俩认识开始某人就曾经多少次为了“杀人”这一个在他看来简单的不能再简单的事情而产生各种他所不能理解也没法对付的心理问题。他曾经无数次的想过，霸天虎也许实在有必要为了这个在战场上都能以“我想”和“我认为”开头才能好好说话的神经纤细的麻烦精配备一个或者不止一个心理医生——惊天雷不是没有能力或者胆怯，只是他实在、实在、实在太喜欢不合时宜的思考了。
“普神在上，你这次又是什么问题……”最后他还是鼓足勇气决定再问一次
“……别问了，我们都知道你不想听”
“……我已经看见了，你好歹满足下同僚的好奇心，不然我会失眠”
换作其他人听到他这句话八成只能有反效果，可是TC清楚，这种语气是某个不善于表达同情心和同僚爱的家伙最善意的表达方式。
“……你真的觉得整天这样……有意思？”
“……哈？”
“杀人、当个霸天虎，我是说……”惊天雷比划着试图找到合适的词“……尽管我们生来就应该是霸天虎……”他模棱两可的摆弄着那枚紫色徽章，看起来就像个刚拿了考试不及格的孩子“我是说——你知道即使是军品……性格上也总有些差别”
“总之又是不习惯对吧= =”闹翻天抱着双臂把自己扔进沙发里“你到底什么时候才能解决这个问题？该死的真应该让钩子给你打一针”他夸张的比划着同时对打针这个词不自觉的露出一点反感的神色“让你什么都忘了，那样肯定比现在好用得多”
“……比起屠城我更乐于……做点研究什么的……或者策略上的事情……总之就算霸天虎缺能量，像饿狼一样全体出动去围攻也实在太难看了，而且很明显的，群殴是效率最低下的一种战术”
“……”这下轮到闹翻天挑高一边眉毛，他感觉到大脑里正在蔓延一种叫做囧的情绪，排除战术这种事情本来就不是他擅长思考的范围里的（其实没有什么事情是他真正擅长思考的），TC刚才的那句不坦白的借口已经足够让今晚的谈话从“失眠”向“催眠”方向发展，于是闹闹开始认真思考起到底怎么才能让眼前这个诺贝尔思考奖（如果有的话）获得者尽量在他睡着之前直白的把问题重点说出来。
“好吧好吧……你的意思是你想……把尖叫鬼从空军指挥官的位置上biu下来……对么？”最后他选了这么个蹩脚的问题来继续谈话
“= =”
“……我倒是没什么意见啦……毕竟谁发号施令都一样，我们组织纪律涣散是出了名的……不过你要真想干我可以帮忙~最近都没什么娱乐”
这回轮到惊天雷抱住头，把额头埋在臂弯里……其实可能的话他还想再埋深一点直接撞进桌子里算了，那样的话无论是一直令他烦恼的滥杀无辜、还是更加令他烦恼的闹翻天都可以在一声闷响当中暂时消失一段时间……
“——我是说！我他妈过够了整天轰炸投弹再轰炸的日子了！”这次惊天雷似乎选择了在沉默中爆发“军品生来就是杀戮、破坏、可是我们不是绞肉机不是么！这样下去什么时候才是个头！简直和只剩本能的怪物没两样！”
“……”
“目的性！！这场战争存在的目的性到底在哪里！”
他跌坐回椅子里，再次用手捂住脸“……我们存在的目的性又在哪里……”
闹翻天呆呆的望着眼前那个歇斯底里的同僚，这么麻烦的问题他从没想过，也自然没试图去想，这就是思维简单的好处——照着命令去做，连他也不知道自己对威震天那份个人崇拜似的忠诚是哪里来的。在他看来，似乎只有红蜘蛛那样的性格才算是一个真正合格的霸天虎——除了军品与生俱来的那份破坏欲，还有对自己的、也仅仅是对自己的绝对忠诚……这点他做不到，也许让他那样他做就会把事情搞糟……总之他没深入的去总结这个问题的答案，懒得、也不想。
“于是你他渣的到底在发什么火？”
“我不想这么打仗！至少、不是滥杀无辜！”
“你是根本就不想打仗吧！”
“……”即使闹翻天不擅长思考，他对某些问题重点的直觉还是很出类拔萃的
“…………你说……为什么……军品就一定要靠打架过活？”
“……我们天生如此你想那么多干什么”
“……任何事情都有例外”
“TC我就不明白了……你又不是没有能力，现在这样，你看，我们不是也过的很好？要是你不想那么多没用的……”
“为什么……霸天虎……就一定得作为杀人机器……只是因为我们有能力……”
闹翻天愣住了。这个问题他不单想不出回答，甚至连谁能回答似乎也不是那么容易能想象的到的。这种事情对于他们来说就好像为什么那两颗卫星总是按照固定的轨道环绕赛博坦……司空见惯又稀松平常……每一个seeker在军校上的第一课，都是如果有能力挣脱引力的束缚就应该飞的更高更快更远，也从来没人对此提出异议……无论是那种高度和速度的飞行，会对自己本身造成什么损害……
“……如果你这种人多一点……我们大概就不会打仗了8…………”
最后，他突然蹦出这么一句话
“……那样赛博坦就不会变成这个样子了……我们也不用这么……跑这么远……”
“背井离乡”
“对……是这个词……”
“呼……………………”
惊天雷疲惫的站起身来，走过去陷进闹闹身边的沙发里，这个问题永远都没有答案，基本上这是肯定的，而这场傻乎乎的仗显然还要继续打下去，在战争开始了很多年以后，他们每个人都学会了该如何用使自己受到最小损害的方式来使痛苦变得麻木甚至将它视为一种同样傻乎乎的娱乐方式，消极怠工不是办法，也许积极一点也能达到同样的效果。但是即使是这样，该累的时候总会累，该问的问题也还是会问……只是差别在于每次的借口和开场白不同，而已，运气好的话也许收场也有些许小的惊喜……
“闹闹……”TC锤着身边那个被传染了某种情绪的人“下次被打中，记得第一时间把我也撞下去……也许你说得对……最近娱乐太少了……”
1.愛吃嗎？還是認為吃只是為了要活下去？
有闲的时候爱吃，通常工作中会觉得吃饭是浪费时间
以前吃过某一家的现烤芝士蛋挞（对不起名字暂时保个小密），第一口咬下去的瞬间确实有点到了天堂的感觉而且当时我绝对不是饿着|||……远目所以吃还是很值得期待的一件事情……
2.早餐/午餐/晚餐通常是？
粥或者豆腐花、没有（！？）、炒两到三个菜、米饭、现榨的果汁、点心
……我知道这种习惯不好……= =
3.一天吃幾頓？（宵夜點心也包括的話）
一到两顿……算上夜宵两顿半
4.會自己下廚？還是是外食部的？
一半一半……赶工的时候懒得跑出去，等到快饿死了才出门或者做饭
5.會邊走邊吃？邊做事情邊吃？（例：邊看電視、看書、上網...etc）
泡芙或者章鱼丸之类的零食会边走边吃……
饭……自己在家的时候除了早饭都会对着电脑吃……除非晚饭东西太多端不过来或者饿扁了没力气端的就……
6.死都不吃的東西（必須是食物）
…………纳豆。尝过一次，实在咽不下去
7.你覺得很好吃但是身邊的人都覺得不好吃/沒什麼特別的東西？
榴莲……害死多少人了都……我甘之如饴~
其余的，按照我的味觉来说都是别人说好吃的我没感觉…
8.日常很規律的在食用的東西？（例：每天、每晚、每次上課前、每月...etc）
……水算么……囧……不喝不行啊
食物的话是水果……坚果当药吃每天几粒（最讨厌吃坚果），我有维生素B2吸收方面的问题
9.一直很想吃吃看但是卻沒機會的東西
小小。
……算了我在开玩笑……
10.覺得豪華的一頓料理不可或缺的是？
矜持。（喂）
是有人陪……尤其是有某人陪……远目
11.（可跳過）自己設計一套華麗的三餐（or其中一餐）。
……pass……这种东西自己设计的根本没有吃时候的惊喜= =
12.吃東西的怪癖？（例：什麼東西都要加美乃滋）
好像没有……有特长，面对某些人做的菜时会启动味觉失灵法
13. 最愛的點心/宵夜
苹果啊= =不然大半夜的不敢吃别的……
点心？那多了……和芝士有关的点心、糯糯的不太甜的东西、金枪鱼制品、蓝莓、鹅肝制品、小小……喂又来了，睡觉啃的算么。
14.一直很想去試試的餐廳
所有的michelin三星餐厅TvT！用一辈子时间不知道有没可能达成这个目标……
不过一想到那种地方实在有压力……
15.這些人感覺都很好吃的樣子...（口水）←這是點名
……………………大半夜的……嗯单独点……