A speech by Steve Jobs,CEO of Apple

苹果电脑公司首席执行官挚情演说

Truth be told,I never graduated from college,and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life.This's it.No big deal.Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months,but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit.So why'd I drop out?

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 far more interesting.

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.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 year later.

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 ten years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a two-billion-dollar company with over 4000 employees.

We'd just released our finest creation-the Macintosh---a year earlier,and I'd 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.And 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 .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'd been rejected,but I was still in love.And so decided to start over.

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's gonna hit 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.

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 past33 years,I've looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself:'If today were the last day of my life,would I wanna 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,akk 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.

Stay hungry.Stay foolish.And I've 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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