喬布斯斯坦福大學演講[中英雙譯]稿
編譯：朱敏琦]
找到並執著於自己喜愛的事情
——史蒂夫·喬布斯在斯坦福大學畢業典禮上的演講
我當時沒有覺察，但後來發現，被蘋果公司解雇可能是我這輩子發生的最好的事情。一個成功者的包袱沒有了，有的隻是一個初出茅廬者的輕鬆感覺，我對各種事情也不再那麽胸有成竹。這讓我輕裝上陣，進入了我生命中最有創造力的階段之一。
今天，我很榮幸能來到貴校這所世界頂尖大學，參加你們的畢業典禮。我沒有念完大學。老實說，今天是我一生中最接近大學畢業的日子。今天我想告訴你們我生活中的三個故事，僅此而已。不是什麽大不了的事情，隻是三個故事。
第一個故事是關於串連起生活的點滴
我在裏德大學讀了六個月之後就退學了，但之後我又像在校生一樣讀了十八個月左右才徹底退學。那麽，我為什麽要退學呢？
這要從我出生前講起。我母親生我的時候還是一個年輕、未婚的在校研究生，所以她決定讓別人收養我。她十分希望收養者是大學畢業生，並辦妥了一切，我出生後就會由一位律師和他的妻子收養。意外的是，我出生後，那對夫妻突然變卦，說他們其實想要一個女孩。於是，當時還在等待名單上的我的養父母在半夜接到了一個電話，問他們說：我們這兒有一個未婚出生的男嬰，你們想要他嗎？他們回答：當然要。但是，隨後我的生母發現，我的養母從來沒有上過大學，我的養父甚至連高中都沒讀完。她拒絕簽訂收養合同。幾個月以後，我的養父母承諾一定會讓我上大學，她才讓步。
十七年之後，我真的上了大學。但是，我很幼稚地選擇了一所學費幾乎和你們斯坦福一樣貴的學校。我父母是工薪階層，他們傾盡積蓄，支付了我的學費。過了六個月，我卻看不到這筆錢的價值。我不知道我想要做什麽，也不知道大學會怎樣幫我找到答案，而我卻在浪費著我父母一輩子的積蓄。所以我決定退學，並堅信這是個正確的決定。我當時非常害怕，但是現在回頭看，那是我一生中最棒的決定之一。一退學，我就可以不去讀那些我不感興趣的必修課，並開始上那些看起來很有意思的課程。
但是，這並沒有多浪漫。我沒有宿舍，隻能睡在朋友房間的地板上。我收集別人喝完的可樂瓶子，來換5美分買吃的。每周日晚上，我都會步行七英裏，穿越城市到Hare Krishna神廟，去免費飽餐一頓。我喜歡那裏的飯菜。後來我發現，先前追隨好奇和直覺而經曆的種種遭遇其實是無價之寶。
我給你們舉個例子：
當時，裏德大學的書法課也許是全國最好的。校園裏的每一張海報，抽屜上的每一張標簽，全都是漂亮的手寫字。因為我退學了，不用去上常規課程，所以我決定去上書法課，學學怎樣寫。我學會了serif 和san serif字體，學會了怎樣調整字母組合的間距，學會了怎樣做出最棒的印刷排字式樣。那種美麗、典雅和精雕細琢，是科學無法體現的，它令我著迷。
當時，在我的生命中，這些東西連一線實際應用的希望都沒有。但是十年後，當我們設計第一台Macintosh電腦的時候，就完全不同了。我們把當時我學的那些東西全都融入進了Mac的設計中。那是第一台使用漂亮字體的電腦。如果我當時沒有去上那門課，Mac就絕不會有這些豐富多彩、賞心悅目的字體。Windows隻是純粹地抄襲Mac，所以，我們可以說，除了Mac，沒有一台個人電腦會有這些字體。如果我當時沒有退學，我就不可能去上這門書法課，那麽個人電腦可能也就不會有如今這麽美妙的字體了。當然，我在大學的時候，還不可能先知先覺地把這些點滴串連起來。但是，十年後回顧這一切的時候，卻豁然開朗，無比清晰。
再說一遍，你在向前看的時候，不可能將這些點滴串連起來，隻有在往回看的時候可以。所以你必須堅信，這些點滴一定會在將來的某一天以某種形式串連起來。你必須執著於某些東西——你的勇氣、命運、生命、因果，等等。這個想法屢試不爽，而且還是我生命中一切改變的源泉。
我的第二個故事是關於愛和失去
我很幸運，因為我很早就找到了自己愛做的事。我二十歲時和Woz在我父母的車庫裏麵創立了蘋果公司。我們努力工作，十年之後，蘋果公司已經從車庫裏兩個人的小打小鬧發展成了擁有四千多名員工、價值二十億美元的大公司。當時，我們最好的產品——Macintosh——才推出僅僅一年，我也剛剛年滿三十。然後，我被解雇了。你怎麽可能被你自己親手創立的公司解雇呢？嗯，在蘋果公司不斷壯大的過程中，我們雇用了一個我覺得很有才能的人和我一起管理公司。第一年，一切順利。但後來我們對未來的設想產生了分歧，最終我們吵了起來，當時董事會站在了他那邊。所以，三十歲時，我出局了，在眾目睽睽之下出局。我生命的支柱崩塌了，這次打擊是毀滅性的。
在最初的幾個月裏，我真是不知道該做些什麽。我覺得，我令上一代的企業家們失望了，我把他們傳給我的接力棒弄掉了。我與David Pack和Bob Noyce見了麵，為自己把事情弄糟向他們道歉。我的失敗眾所周知，我甚至想過逃離矽穀。但是，我漸漸想通了一些事情——我依然喜愛我做的事情，在蘋果公司的滑鐵盧絲毫沒有改變這一點。我被解雇了，但我仍然喜愛我做的事情。所以，我決定東山再起。
我當時沒有覺察，但後來發現，被蘋果公司解雇可能是我這輩子發生的最好的事情。一個成功者的包袱沒有了，有的隻是一個初出茅廬者的輕鬆感覺，我對各種事情也不再那麽胸有成竹。這讓我輕裝上陣，進入了我生命中最有創造力的階段之一。
在之後的五年裏，我創立了一家名叫NeXT的公司和一家叫Pixar的公司，並和一個非凡的女子墜入愛河，她後來成為了我的妻子。Pixar 製作了世界上第一部用電腦製作的動畫電影《玩具總動員》。Pixar現在是全世界最成功的動畫工作室。在一係列因緣際會之後，蘋果公司收購了NeXT，我又回到了蘋果公司。我們在NeXT開發的技術成了今天蘋果公司複興的關鍵。我還和Laurence建立了一個幸福的家庭。
我確信，如果我不被蘋果公司解雇，這些事情都不會發生。這是苦口良藥，但我覺得病人需要它。有些時候，生活會用磚頭砸你的腦袋，但不要喪失信念。我堅信，讓我前行的惟一動力，就是我在做自己喜愛的事情。你要找到你愛做的事情。工作如此，愛情也是如此。你的工作將會占據你生活中的很大一塊。你隻有相信自己在做著偉大的工作，才能真正心滿意足。而做偉大的工作的前提，是你喜愛自己所做的事情。如果你現在還沒有找到，那麽繼續找，不要停。隻要是內心向往的東西，你就會找到。這和任何美好的愛情一樣，隨著歲月的流逝隻會漸入佳境。所以繼續找，直到你找到，不要停。
我的第三個故事是關於死亡
我十七歲時讀到過一句話，大意是：如果你把每一天都當作生命中最後一天去過，那麽有一天你會走上人生的正軌。這句話給我留下了深刻的印象。從那時起，之後33年的每天早晨，我都會對著鏡子問自己：假如今天是我生命中的最後一天，我會不會想要做今天本要做的事情？隻要連續很多天得到的答案都是不的時候，我就知道自己需要做些改變了。
牢記我即將死去是幫助我做出生命裏重大決定的最重要手段。因為幾乎所有的事情——所有外界的期待，所有的榮耀，所有對難堪和失敗的恐懼——所有這些在死亡麵前都不堪一擊，剩下的才是真正重要的東西。牢記你即將死去是我知道的最好的方法，可以使你避開覺得有所損失的思維陷阱。當你已經赤條條、無牽無掛的時候，就沒有理由不去追隨自己的心聲。
大約一年前，我被診斷出患有癌症。我在早晨七點半做了一個掃描，清楚地顯示在我的胰腺有一個腫瘤。我當時甚至不知道胰腺是什麽東西。醫生告訴我，可以肯定那是一種無法治愈的癌症，我還可以活三到六個月。我的醫生建議我回家，安頓好我的一切，那是醫生對臨終病人的暗示。那意味著要把在未來十年對你小孩說的話在短短幾個月裏說完。那意味著把每一件事都安排妥當，讓你的家人會盡可能輕鬆地生活。那意味著說再見。
我拿著那份診斷書過了一整天，那天晚上我做了一個活切片檢查，醫生將一個內窺鏡從我的喉嚨伸進去，通過我的胃，然後進入我的腸子，把一根針插進我的胰腺，在腫瘤上取了幾個細胞。我當時被麻醉了，但我的妻子在那裏。後來她告訴我，醫生在顯微鏡下觀察這些細胞時欣喜若狂，因為這是一種極其罕見的可以手術治愈的胰腺癌。我做了手術，現在我痊愈了。
那是我最接近死亡的時刻，我希望這也是在以後的幾十年裏我最接近死亡的一次。以前，死亡對於我隻是一個有用的、但是僅限於知識層麵的概念。從死亡線上活過來後，我現在可以更加確定地告訴你們：
沒有人想死。即使是想上天堂的人，也不會以死亡為手段。但死亡又是我們每個人共同的終點，從來沒有人能夠逃脫。死亡就應該這樣。因為死亡很可能是生命最好的一個創造。死亡是改變生命的因子，推陳出新。現在，你們是新的，但是不久之後，你們將會逐漸變舊，然後被清除。很抱歉，這樣說太戲劇性，卻是事實。
你們的時間是有限的，所以不要把它浪費在重複他人的生活上。不要被教條束縛——那是生活在他人思維的產物之下。不要讓他人喧囂的觀點淹沒你自己內心的聲音。最重要的是，你要有勇氣去追隨你的心聲和直覺。在某種程度上，它們知道你想要變成什麽樣子，其他的事都是次要的。
我年輕時，有一本精彩的書，名叫《全球目錄》，它是我們那代人的聖經之一。它由一個叫Stewart Brand的人創辦，創辦地點是離這裏不遠的門羅公園。他如詩一般的魔力讓這本書異彩紛呈。那是六十年代後期，還沒有個人電腦和桌麵出版，所以這本書全部是用打字機、剪刀還有偏光鏡製作的。它有點像書本形式的Google，在真正的Google誕生的三十五年前：它是理想主義的，充滿了靈巧的方法和非凡的想法。
Stewart和他的團隊出版了幾期《全球目錄》，後來當它完成了自己的使命時，他們出版了最後一期。那是在七十年代的中期，當時我和你們現在一樣大。在最後一期的封底上是一條清晨鄉間道路的照片，就是那種如果你喜歡探險，自己搭便車會去的路。照片下方有這樣一段話：求知若渴，大智若愚。這是他們停刊的告別語。求知若渴，大智若愚。這是我一直以來的座右銘。現在，在你們即將畢業，開始新的旅程的時候，我與你們共勉。
求知若渴，大智若愚。
謝謝大家！
（中文譯文）
New York: 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, it's 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.www.liz
hidaren.com
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 it's 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.
找到並執著於自己喜愛的事情
——史蒂夫·喬布斯在斯坦福大學畢業典禮上的演講
我當時沒有覺察，但後來發現，被蘋果公司解雇可能是我這輩子發生的最好的事情。一個成功者的包袱沒有了，有的隻是一個初出茅廬者的輕鬆感覺，我對各種事情也不再那麽胸有成竹。這讓我輕裝上陣，進入了我生命中最有創造力的階段之一。
今天，我很榮幸能來到貴校這所世界頂尖大學，參加你們的畢業典禮。我沒有念完大學。老實說，今天是我一生中最接近大學畢業的日子。今天我想告訴你們我生活中的三個故事，僅此而已。不是什麽大不了的事情，隻是三個故事。
第一個故事是關於串連起生活的點滴
我在裏德大學讀了六個月之後就退學了，但之後我又像在校生一樣讀了十八個月左右才徹底退學。那麽，我為什麽要退學呢？
這要從我出生前講起。我母親生我的時候還是一個年輕、未婚的在校研究生，所以她決定讓別人收養我。她十分希望收養者是大學畢業生，並辦妥了一切，我出生後就會由一位律師和他的妻子收養。意外的是，我出生後，那對夫妻突然變卦，說他們其實想要一個女孩。於是，當時還在等待名單上的我的養父母在半夜接到了一個電話，問他們說：我們這兒有一個未婚出生的男嬰，你們想要他嗎？他們回答：當然要。但是，隨後我的生母發現，我的養母從來沒有上過大學，我的養父甚至連高中都沒讀完。她拒絕簽訂收養合同。幾個月以後，我的養父母承諾一定會讓我上大學，她才讓步。
十七年之後，我真的上了大學。但是，我很幼稚地選擇了一所學費幾乎和你們斯坦福一樣貴的學校。我父母是工薪階層，他們傾盡積蓄，支付了我的學費。過了六個月，我卻看不到這筆錢的價值。我不知道我想要做什麽，也不知道大學會怎樣幫我找到答案，而我卻在浪費著我父母一輩子的積蓄。所以我決定退學，並堅信這是個正確的決定。我當時非常害怕，但是現在回頭看，那是我一生中最棒的決定之一。一退學，我就可以不去讀那些我不感興趣的必修課，並開始上那些看起來很有意思的課程。
但是，這並沒有多浪漫。我沒有宿舍，隻能睡在朋友房間的地板上。我收集別人喝完的可樂瓶子，來換5美分買吃的。每周日晚上，我都會步行七英裏，穿越城市到Hare Krishna神廟，去免費飽餐一頓。我喜歡那裏的飯菜。後來我發現，先前追隨好奇和直覺而經曆的種種遭遇其實是無價之寶。
我給你們舉個例子：
當時，裏德大學的書法課也許是全國最好的。校園裏的每一張海報，抽屜上的每一張標簽，全都是漂亮的手寫字。因為我退學了，不用去上常規課程，所以我決定去上書法課，學學怎樣寫。我學會了serif 和san serif字體，學會了怎樣調整字母組合的間距，學會了怎樣做出最棒的印刷排字式樣。那種美麗、典雅和精雕細琢，是科學無法體現的，它令我著迷。
當時，在我的生命中，這些東西連一線實際應用的希望都沒有。但是十年後，當我們設計第一台Macintosh電腦的時候，就完全不同了。我們把當時我學的那些東西全都融入進了Mac的設計中。那是第一台使用漂亮字體的電腦。如果我當時沒有去上那門課，Mac就絕不會有這些豐富多彩、賞心悅目的字體。Windows隻是純粹地抄襲Mac，所以，我們可以說，除了Mac，沒有一台個人電腦會有這些字體。如果我當時沒有退學，我就不可能去上這門書法課，那麽個人電腦可能也就不會有如今這麽美妙的字體了。當然，我在大學的時候，還不可能先知先覺地把這些點滴串連起來。但是，十年後回顧這一切的時候，卻豁然開朗，無比清晰。
再說一遍，你在向前看的時候，不可能將這些點滴串連起來，隻有在往回看的時候可以。所以你必須堅信，這些點滴一定會在將來的某一天以某種形式串連起來。你必須執著於某些東西——你的勇氣、命運、生命、因果，等等。這個想法屢試不爽，而且還是我生命中一切改變的源泉。
我的第二個故事是關於愛和失去
我很幸運，因為我很早就找到了自己愛做的事。我二十歲時和Woz在我父母的車庫裏麵創立了蘋果公司。我們努力工作，十年之後，蘋果公司已經從車庫裏兩個人的小打小鬧發展成了擁有四千多名員工、價值二十億美元的大公司。當時，我們最好的產品——Macintosh——才推出僅僅一年，我也剛剛年滿三十。然後，我被解雇了。你怎麽可能被你自己親手創立的公司解雇呢？嗯，在蘋果公司不斷壯大的過程中，我們雇用了一個我覺得很有才能的人和我一起管理公司。第一年，一切順利。但後來我們對未來的設想產生了分歧，最終我們吵了起來，當時董事會站在了他那邊。所以，三十歲時，我出局了，在眾目睽睽之下出局。我生命的支柱崩塌了，這次打擊是毀滅性的。
在最初的幾個月裏，我真是不知道該做些什麽。我覺得，我令上一代的企業家們失望了，我把他們傳給我的接力棒弄掉了。我與David Pack和Bob Noyce見了麵，為自己把事情弄糟向他們道歉。我的失敗眾所周知，我甚至想過逃離矽穀。但是，我漸漸想通了一些事情——我依然喜愛我做的事情，在蘋果公司的滑鐵盧絲毫沒有改變這一點。我被解雇了，但我仍然喜愛我做的事情。所以，我決定東山再起。
我當時沒有覺察，但後來發現，被蘋果公司解雇可能是我這輩子發生的最好的事情。一個成功者的包袱沒有了，有的隻是一個初出茅廬者的輕鬆感覺，我對各種事情也不再那麽胸有成竹。這讓我輕裝上陣，進入了我生命中最有創造力的階段之一。
在之後的五年裏，我創立了一家名叫NeXT的公司和一家叫Pixar的公司，並和一個非凡的女子墜入愛河，她後來成為了我的妻子。Pixar 製作了世界上第一部用電腦製作的動畫電影《玩具總動員》。Pixar現在是全世界最成功的動畫工作室。在一係列因緣際會之後，蘋果公司收購了NeXT，我又回到了蘋果公司。我們在NeXT開發的技術成了今天蘋果公司複興的關鍵。我還和Laurence建立了一個幸福的家庭。
我確信，如果我不被蘋果公司解雇，這些事情都不會發生。這是苦口良藥，但我覺得病人需要它。有些時候，生活會用磚頭砸你的腦袋，但不要喪失信念。我堅信，讓我前行的惟一動力，就是我在做自己喜愛的事情。你要找到你愛做的事情。工作如此，愛情也是如此。你的工作將會占據你生活中的很大一塊。你隻有相信自己在做著偉大的工作，才能真正心滿意足。而做偉大的工作的前提，是你喜愛自己所做的事情。如果你現在還沒有找到，那麽繼續找，不要停。隻要是內心向往的東西，你就會找到。這和任何美好的愛情一樣，隨著歲月的流逝隻會漸入佳境。所以繼續找，直到你找到，不要停。
我的第三個故事是關於死亡
我十七歲時讀到過一句話，大意是：如果你把每一天都當作生命中最後一天去過，那麽有一天你會走上人生的正軌。這句話給我留下了深刻的印象。從那時起，之後33年的每天早晨，我都會對著鏡子問自己：假如今天是我生命中的最後一天，我會不會想要做今天本要做的事情？隻要連續很多天得到的答案都是不的時候，我就知道自己需要做些改變了。
牢記我即將死去是幫助我做出生命裏重大決定的最重要手段。因為幾乎所有的事情——所有外界的期待，所有的榮耀，所有對難堪和失敗的恐懼——所有這些在死亡麵前都不堪一擊，剩下的才是真正重要的東西。牢記你即將死去是我知道的最好的方法，可以使你避開覺得有所損失的思維陷阱。當你已經赤條條、無牽無掛的時候，就沒有理由不去追隨自己的心聲。
大約一年前，我被診斷出患有癌症。我在早晨七點半做了一個掃描，清楚地顯示在我的胰腺有一個腫瘤。我當時甚至不知道胰腺是什麽東西。醫生告訴我，可以肯定那是一種無法治愈的癌症，我還可以活三到六個月。我的醫生建議我回家，安頓好我的一切，那是醫生對臨終病人的暗示。那意味著要把在未來十年對你小孩說的話在短短幾個月裏說完。那意味著把每一件事都安排妥當，讓你的家人會盡可能輕鬆地生活。那意味著說再見。
我拿著那份診斷書過了一整天，那天晚上我做了一個活切片檢查，醫生將一個內窺鏡從我的喉嚨伸進去，通過我的胃，然後進入我的腸子，把一根針插進我的胰腺，在腫瘤上取了幾個細胞。我當時被麻醉了，但我的妻子在那裏。後來她告訴我，醫生在顯微鏡下觀察這些細胞時欣喜若狂，因為這是一種極其罕見的可以手術治愈的胰腺癌。我做了手術，現在我痊愈了。
那是我最接近死亡的時刻，我希望這也是在以後的幾十年裏我最接近死亡的一次。以前，死亡對於我隻是一個有用的、但是僅限於知識層麵的概念。從死亡線上活過來後，我現在可以更加確定地告訴你們：
沒有人想死。即使是想上天堂的人，也不會以死亡為手段。但死亡又是我們每個人共同的終點，從來沒有人能夠逃脫。死亡就應該這樣。因為死亡很可能是生命最好的一個創造。死亡是改變生命的因子，推陳出新。現在，你們是新的，但是不久之後，你們將會逐漸變舊，然後被清除。很抱歉，這樣說太戲劇性，卻是事實。
你們的時間是有限的，所以不要把它浪費在重複他人的生活上。不要被教條束縛——那是生活在他人思維的產物之下。不要讓他人喧囂的觀點淹沒你自己內心的聲音。最重要的是，你要有勇氣去追隨你的心聲和直覺。在某種程度上，它們知道你想要變成什麽樣子，其他的事都是次要的。
我年輕時，有一本精彩的書，名叫《全球目錄》，它是我們那代人的聖經之一。它由一個叫Stewart Brand的人創辦，創辦地點是離這裏不遠的門羅公園。他如詩一般的魔力讓這本書異彩紛呈。那是六十年代後期，還沒有個人電腦和桌麵出版，所以這本書全部是用打字機、剪刀還有偏光鏡製作的。它有點像書本形式的Google，在真正的Google誕生的三十五年前：它是理想主義的，充滿了靈巧的方法和非凡的想法。
Stewart和他的團隊出版了幾期《全球目錄》，後來當它完成了自己的使命時，他們出版了最後一期。那是在七十年代的中期，當時我和你們現在一樣大。在最後一期的封底上是一條清晨鄉間道路的照片，就是那種如果你喜歡探險，自己搭便車會去的路。照片下方有這樣一段話：求知若渴，大智若愚。這是他們停刊的告別語。求知若渴，大智若愚。這是我一直以來的座右銘。現在，在你們即將畢業，開始新的旅程的時候，我與你們共勉。
求知若渴，大智若愚。
謝謝大家！
（中文譯文）
New York: 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, it's 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.www.liz
hidaren.com
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 it's 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.
