Steve Jobs On Life, Work, Love And Death

Chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs, urged graduates to pursue their dreams no matter what, find what you love and see life’s setbacks as opportunities. He courageously doesn’t repress the uncanny end: Death!

This 114th commencement address was held at Stanford university on 12th June.                   

…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 cent deposits to buy food with. And I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.

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. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference.

You’ve got to find what you love and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is gonna 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 ist to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and 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 – don’t settle.

…For the past 33 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 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.

No one wants to die. Even people who wanna go to heaven don’t want to die to get there…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 other’s 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.