天天做不喜歡做的事，和不喜歡的人在一起，真是人生的悲劇。最簡單的一個例子就是學習。如果不喜歡一門課，每45分鍾的課都很難熬。如果不喜歡自己的工作，心境之可悲就可想而知了。
SJ的演講和生活很發人深省。希望世界上像他那樣生活的人越來越多。
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
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:
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
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.
你提到的現象我也都注意到了。為這兩件事而費心，隻是看到了表象。你想想，這兩件事是偶然的嗎？如果不是偶然，根源在什麽地方？不治根，結果會是什麽樣你知道吧。
一件小事：就在各媒體都報道舊金山的事兒的時候，PBS邀請中國大使館派人到電視台和不同觀點的人一起作個討論。但是，中國大使館最後並沒有派人參加。最後，和人權組織的代表一起討論的是“百人團”的一位成員。
祝周末快樂！
恭喜瘦身! :) 大漠,網上都炸了, 關於這西藏奧運不知大漠怎麽想的?
周末好, 一切好!
當時“目擊”的人也挺多，都感到氣憤，但除了喊shame之外，也沒有其它著力之處。I only hope there is nothing that needs me to fight police.
Take care.
哇, 還給你目擊了哈.
謝謝開導.
新的一周平安快樂順利!
常聽說，人人都有本難念的經。話雖如此，那經多難念卻是有很大區別的。現在的環境和年代比父母那一代好得沒法說了。因此，我經常提醒自己：自己遇到的不順算不了什麽。“麵包會有的，一切都會有的。”（記不清是不是列寧的話了）
祝QQ天天開心！
謝謝大漠! 謝謝你的分享, 我有時日沒追蹤了. 同事們有時說起, 並不是太支持信任她.
我非常忙, 大漠, 這段真是很難很難...以後再敘吧...也祝你順利, 健康, 平安, 快樂, 一切好!
QQ :)
謝謝你的問候。在國內的時候，人們都把星期天當作周末；在這裏，好象都把星期天當成一周的第一天，至少日曆上是這樣的吧。因此，現在要祝福你這一周天天順心如意了。
剛才看到HILLARY陣營無力支付帳單的消息，看來她是難以為繼了。比她參與競選民主黨總統候選人以來，她先後籌措到的資金有1億3千萬美元吧。這些都打水漂了。在這麽好的條件下她都贏不了初選，或許她真不是當總統的料兒。如果OBAMA不出意外，她也算沒有當總統的命了。
新的一周又開始了。祝一切順心如意。
謝謝大漠. 不知是個什麽神秘遊戲要玩那麽久啊? 將近五年半哦... 隻要能常聊聊, 大家平安順利, 就好.
大漠新的一周好!
對於台灣問題和美國當前民主黨的選舉，雖然想法中有一點道理，但事實上一點實際用途也沒有。因此，也不想在這上麵再胡想了。還是回歸本色：當生活中的逍遙派！把精力放在自己能做的一些事上。
現在比較忙。等到5月中旬的時候，開始一個為期2000天的遊戲。但對你來說就很無味了。遺憾！
祝QQ周末快樂！
馬當選了, 想問問你的看法.
大漠周末快樂!
愛：生命的支柱
"Steve Jobs並不是一個完美的人。但在我眼中，他是個成功者：不僅在事業上取得了巨大成功，在生活中他的心靈也過得很幸福。之所以有這一切，重要因素之一是他的世界觀：他在生活中追求自己熱愛的東西。正因為這樣，他才能找到自己喜愛做的事業和熱愛的人。"
the sad thing is, i had to spend more than 9 hours a day, the most fresh anergy hour to do stuff that i don't like. i love to write and i have come to the criticle point of my composing/writing/translating..still i can only use my tiring hours to do those that is really most important to me.
i guess i cannot say that, work is important too because i need to suppor my family my love ones.
Damo, thank you again! you are THE ONLY ONE on web that remember my birthday ... thank you and i am touched...
chat you later. take good care Damo!
問候你, 祝福你! .....