With so much uncertainty around Apple and even Steve Jobs' futures, I went back and found these words and
philosophies of his on looking back and forward in one's life.
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
— Stanford University commencement address, June 12, 2005