Posted on Wednesday 14 December 2005 - Popularity: 5%
This is a transcript of the commencement speech that Steve gave at the Stanford University. The first story is about connecting the dots, the second is about love and loss and the third is about death. Just a small excerpt:
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 thing 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.
There really is no excuse to not read this transcript, doesn’t really matter if you’re a Mac user or not.
December 14th, 2005 at 2:52 pm
Nice stories. However, to this day, I’m still waiting for him to tell the story of how he stole thousands of dollars from his best friend Steve Wozniac by lying to him about that Atari job task.
December 14th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
yeah, like Steve Jobs is the Buddha … his credibility is half-half … and I still think he does a lot of mistakes as a human living on the edge:
One cannot choose the IT sector in order to live a FULL life
December 14th, 2005 at 3:21 pm
“One cannot choose the IT sector in order to live a FULL life” … why not? Maybe not Steve, but what about open source developers that spend most of their time developing inovative applications with a group of other like minded people? The question of course is how you define a “FULL life”.
Fredi