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28 Aug 2005 @ 08:21, by Vaxen Var
"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. 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. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma. 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. Everything else is secondary."
-- Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, in Stanford Report, 2/3/05
August 28, 2005
This message is available on the Internet at [link]
Dear friends,
Find what you love and do it! This is the core of a commencement address made at Stanford University by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios. One of the most unique—and most successful—businessmen ever drops pearls of wisdom into our souls with this short, yet deeply inspiring speech. May we all learn to listen to our inner voice and to find what we love and do it. Take care and have a wonderful day and week ahead!
With love and best wishes,
Fred Burks
[link] - Stanford Report of Stanford University
'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 retuned 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.
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Category: Spirituality
16 comments
28 Aug 2005 @ 13:32 by martha : Thanks Vaxen
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28 Aug 2005 @ 15:52 by scotty : Fabulous !
Thankyou so much for posting this Vax !
28 Aug 2005 @ 19:40 by joda : That's the spirit !
How simple and clear :)
So many Earth inhabitants today are lost and don't have any clue, what to do with their lives. Brainwashed by school, society, media they run to and fro, finding only misery and unfulfillment in the end.
I remember my late teenage years (well, that was not so long ago) and I remember how difficult it was to do, what the heart was telling me. We are so ADVANCED, so CIVILIZED [at leat some say so ;)], but we've lost the connection with ourselves. And so one meets people, who say things like "don't be a fool, stop doing THAT silly thing, get YOURSELF an official education, decent job, etc".. Lucky for me, I've had a copy of "Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. There are many, who criticize the guy, but I owe him a lot of my freedom and happines. Following ONE'S OWN PATH can be difficult at times. Well...I had to leave home, with only a couple of bucks in my pocket, with military recruiters on my back, and "oh, so very disapointed" parents. Standing at the street, alone, I thought "ok, boy, You showed them, but NOW WHAT?" In such moments, when You really follow Your inner call, reality magically bends itself and presents you with a solution. Ha! Better than that, more than one solution - A COUPLE OF THEM. Back then, I didn't look at life as a GAME, I was SO serious, but I took it to the edge anyway...It worked just fine :D
Heh, ok, that was a little retrospective of mine. And..of course, I know a couple of similar stories, right from my neighbourhood. Those people aren't necessarily well known or rich (like Steve Jobs), but when I meet them at the street, at their job, I see strong, responsible, and happy human beings.
STAY HUNGRY! STAY FOOLISH! :)))
28 Aug 2005 @ 20:21 by : Yes!
Thanks joda! That was just titillating enough for me to want to hear more!
Though I don't admire Steve, M, I do lend deep credence, and lots of clear water, to what he says in this address.
Sure, scotty chan, any time... ;)
28 Aug 2005 @ 20:37 by jmarc : stay hungry
good advice. Not always fun while experiencing that, but yeah, it's a character building situation that helps one keep things in perspective later when one's metaphorical belly is full.
28 Aug 2005 @ 21:51 by martha : ****
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29 Aug 2005 @ 03:29 by astrid : Hi Joda,
don't you just love The Alchemist?!?.... I adore 'him'; The Boy. The Book is so full of encouragement and wisdom and filled to the brim with WONDER, yeah, that's the word: Wonder!... The Alchemist is full of Wonder!
and BTW, one of the best book(titles) -ever- must be Marsha Sinetar's book "Do What You Love and Money will Follow"; a Best Seller, eversince the early Eighties!
29 Aug 2005 @ 09:46 by : Again...
emphasis on ''money!'' I get so damned 'pissed' at people that keep directing others to the scumbag Federal Reserve rip off system! Maybe lil Marsha ought to study that! Maybe she ought to engage in diatomaceous sovereignty as well! Aside from that...Al Kemia can be fun. Changing lead to gold. ;) Now that ought to get the ''money'' grubbers of this fried egg planet off their haunches! Oi, though, when they finally understand that Al Kemia's ''gold'' isn't metal...won't they be pissed! Oh, many have tried...few have succeded in changing the lead of the lower water region into the gold of the ''upper crust.'' Crusty!
29 Aug 2005 @ 11:13 by scotty : Rich is Bad
and Poor is Good ? Naah !
The reason people say it isnt good to be rich is because they have this distorted idea that theres just one pile thats being divvied out!
Money is just another form of energy...by depriving ourselves of what we are wanting doesn't mean that the balance column will move over to someone else.
Money is just one part of Abundance.. and so the worst possible thing that could happen is that one would allow the absolute abundance of clarity and well-being and $$$$$$$ to flow to you.
One would be this remarkable example that others could then emulate. Then the same horrible thing could happen to them.
There's enough Abundance in the universe for everybody !
: )
29 Aug 2005 @ 13:47 by : as for me, i keep seeing the Whole Earth
the front cover of the Whole Earth Catalogue is keeping my head on straight. How i loved the smell of the pages, the infinite discoveries. Loved that book, and Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry epitaph has rigorously found a home round me (like a buzzing fly that just won't go). thanks, Vax - and here's a link to some excerpts: {http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GER/is_1998_Winter/ai_53489459}
judih
29 Aug 2005 @ 16:04 by astrid : You know, Vax,
besides money, there's so much else that counts for WEALTH! I think this is an ongoing thing we all need to work on: to dare to feel and truly JOIN others in (the) feeling... Not all transformation must be lead to gold, eh? Sure, sure, there is the Metaphor....
You talk much about multi dimenshionality... when you feel the need to distance yourself others. So many of us are so afraid of losing our own individuality, when agreeing with others becomes an issue.
The more we lose the need to be in a league of our own, I have come to see; the more ABUNDANCE do we receive in gazzillion forms.
MONEY IS JUST ONE OF THEM -if we care, but not frorced upon us!!!
And it( Life) is after all NOT about money. It is about the question whether we are FOLLOWING SOMEONE ELSE/ HAVING SOMEONE ELSE CALL our SHOTS. In other words: Being a SLAVE vs FOLLOWING MY OWN HEART/ME CALLING MY OWN SHOTS. In other words: Being SOVEREIGN!...
Money alone doesn't make anybody one way or the other, I don't think.
Relax, relax, relax, Vax,... No need to twist your arms and pull your hair in despair, the minute the WORD "Money" enters the Arena! Ease up, Darling. HOW we get the money and how we use it ARE THE IMPORTANT ISSUES, that we all should talk about MUCH MORE THAN WE DO!!!.... At least I think, that THIS is the issue that either makes it or brakes it for ALL of us!
When Marsha, published her book in the early Eighties, it liberated thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people to respond to their own God-given Creativity, and allowed them to follow their own Heart, because, now they had gotten that tiny little piece of encouragement they needed in order to say NO to the System, as in turning 180 degrees away from the System's SLAVERY and do Things ON THEIR OWN TERMS, Whether money was part of the pic or not is NOT the Point.... BUT TO KNOW IN ADVANCE THAT LIFE ALWAYS PROVIDES/ TAKES CARE OF OUR NEEDS WHEN WE LIVE FROM YOUR INNER JOY & CREATIVITY. THAT is the Point!!!
Where were you in the early eighties and what did you do???? How many did your own shared insights have the power to liberate???... ALL in Life is NOT meant as a PISSING Match between Vax on one side and the rest of the world on the other as his un-worthy challengers!.... ; )
People who have this compulsive need to oppose others... just to make sure they don't get taken for being one of those dummies, but always making sure they are held apart,as in a League of their own. Been there, done that... Know many who still do that!... I have a feeling that when we do those things it is because of some unsolved issues about VALUE/ WEALTH: Poverty vs Abundance!...
What, do you, Vax, think was the difference in Steve's approach to his life/ creativity and Marsha's advice in her book: DO WHAT YOU LOVE ...and... ..???? Isn't that exactly the "curse" that happened to poor Steve, when he followed his Heart????? ABUNDANCE follows... sometimes more in cash form, sometimes in forms of (new )friends who adores us, sometimes, In other words: what ever we want or whatever we happen to need at any point of time. What could be more wonderful than this????
I do know something else too: When YOU vax, talk about Sovereignty; how we should become aware of this little "twist" in our Every-day Reality YOU -not only do give/offer people the same kind of liberation, but you open the door to multidimensionality, becuase liberation from the System always is multidimensionality in PRACTICE! (-as opposed to "just" talk)! Who is better in opening people's eyes to their true Nature of being born free, right to remain freee - or reclaiming lost freedom, than you?!? That is a tremendous WEALTH to yourself not to mention what a life changing thing it is to all whose eyes will open up, thanks to your Knowledge, Wisdom, Joy and Enthusiasm, in sharing your Love and Care... and money is not the issue at all when talking sovereignty. YET BOTH ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT, EQUALLY VALUABLE, EQUALLY LIBERATING!!!! You, Vax are offering people a FREEDOM of CHOISE they/we didn't have before!... untill we read what you knew -in your Heart- to be true about Life. If THAT is not Abundance, though not measureable in dollars, then I don't know what is!...
If acting upon y/our own creativity, maybe in form of wood carving, singing, cooking, cleaning -or WHAT-EVER it is, if it is from y/our Heart, done with Joy from your Heart; if THAT is not Abundance, then I don't know what is!
29 Aug 2005 @ 16:29 by martha : ****
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29 Aug 2005 @ 18:46 by astrid : Yeah, I know Martha,
but I am not so sure our friend vax really knows it on his deepest gutt level feeling!....heheheh... If he stood here in front of me, I would just hold him, hug him til he relaxed from this compulsory fight or flight reaction the second the word 'money' shows up!
I know, I'm not expressing too eloquently my point, but, maybe you people can distill it from the overall text of mine here. As always: I am saying: HOW we handle Life, is what makes it or brakes it for all of us. That "handling" includes how we handle money ( but is NOT exclusively about money) and how we handle receiveing all our needs to be met! I believe it is 24/7 for everyone of us! None of is above or below the others! NONE.... try as might, it still isn't so, so we might as well -ALL- give up that illusion! : )
Just the title alone, of Marsha's book, opened up a new door to LIFE for me ( too )!
29 Aug 2005 @ 20:28 by : Money...
I was talking about the Federal Reserve bank! Most people, forced to use their 'fiat' currency, are in so many ways being ripped off by them! Fraud is fraud. So maybe her 'self help' book was good...there are tons of those things out there.
As far as Riches are concerned? They come in many colors not all of them red white and blue, not all of them dictated by fraudulent banking practices! The Federal Reserve is still there! Why? Vax on one side and the rest of the world on the other? You are so trite it is pathetic but, then, you know that M.
Yeah, do what you love. The Feds are doing what they love as is Bush Inc., so much for love! As for Coelho? Long time ago in another...?
I'll accept all offerings as long as they don't kill me. So, offer up or shut up. ;) Have a lovely day.
Thanks Yehudit. The Whole Earth Catalogue was something...next thing?" Googlenet and free WiFi!
30 Aug 2005 @ 01:34 by frank4zen : yes
so right thank you
8 Nov 2011 @ 00:38 by @97.75.169.82 : Miss you, Steve
For all of the criticism of Steve Jobs over the past few weeks since his passing we have to remember that he is a human with weaknesses and imperfections like all of us. At least he seemed to channel his energy to create amazing products and experiences.
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