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 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.

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

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html 　

翻譯：

我今天很榮幸能和你們一起參加畢業(yè)典禮，斯坦福大學是世界上最好的大學之一。我從來沒有從大學中畢業(yè)。說實話,今天也許是在我的生命中離大學畢業(yè)最近的一天了。今天我想向你們講述我生活中的三個故事。不是什么大不了的事情,只是三個故事而已。
　　
　　第一個故事是關于如何把生命中的點點滴滴串連起來。
　　
　　我在Reed大學讀了六個月之后就退學了,但是在十八個月以后--我真正的作出退學決定之前,我還經(jīng)常去學校。我為什么要退學呢？
　　
　　故事從我出生的時候講起。我的親生母親是一個年輕的,沒有結婚的大學畢業(yè)生。她決定讓別人收養(yǎng)我, 她十分想讓我被大學畢業(yè)生收養(yǎng)。所以在我出生的時候，她已經(jīng)做好了一切的準備工作，能使得我被一個律師和他的妻子所收養(yǎng)。但是她沒有料到,當我出生之后, 律師夫婦突然決定他們想要一個女孩。所以我的生養(yǎng)父母（他們在待選名單上）突然在半夜接到了一個電話:"我們現(xiàn)在這兒有一個不小心生出來的男嬰,你們想要他嗎？"他們回答道: "當然！"但是我親生母親隨后發(fā)現(xiàn)，我的養(yǎng)母從來沒有上過大學,我的養(yǎng)父 甚至從沒有讀過高中。她拒絕簽這個收養(yǎng)合同。只是在幾個月以后,我的父母答應她一定要讓我上大學,那個時候她才軟化同意。
　　
　　在十七歲那年,我真的上了大學。但是我很愚蠢的選擇了一個幾乎和你們斯坦福大學一樣貴的學校, 我父母還處于藍領階層，他們幾乎把所有積蓄都花在了我的學費上面。在六個月后, 我已經(jīng)看不到其中的價值所在。我不知道我真正想要做什么,我也不知道大學能怎樣幫助我找到答案。但是在這里，我?guī)缀趸ü饬宋腋改高@一輩子的 全部積蓄。所以我決定要退學,我覺得這是個正確的決定。不能否認,我當時確實非常的害怕, 但是現(xiàn)在回頭看看,那的確是我這一生中最棒的一個決定。在我做出退學決定的那一刻, 我終于可以不必去讀那些令我提不起絲毫興趣的課程了。然后我可以開始去修那些看起來有點意思的課程。

但是這并不是那么羅曼蒂克。我失去了我的宿舍,所以我只能在朋友房間的地板上面睡覺,我去撿可以換5美分的可樂罐，僅僅為了填飽肚子, 在星期天的晚上,我需要走七英里的路程，穿過這個城市到Hare Krishna神廟（注：位于紐約Brooklyn下城）,只是為了能吃上好飯--這個星期唯一一頓好一點的飯，我喜歡那里的飯菜。

　　我跟著我的直覺和好奇心走, 遇到的很多東西,此后被證明是無價之寶。讓我給你們舉一個例子吧：
　　
　　Reed大學在那時提供也許是全美最好的美術字課程。在這個大學里面的每個海報, 每個抽屜的標簽上面全都是漂亮的美術字。因為我退學了, 不必去上正規(guī)的課程, 所以我決定去參加這個課程，去學學怎樣寫出漂亮的美術字。我學到了san serif 和serif字體, 我學會了怎么樣在不同的字母組合之中改變空白間距, 還有怎么樣才能作出最棒的印刷式樣。那種美好、歷史感和藝術精妙，是科學永遠不能捕捉到的, 我發(fā)現(xiàn)那實在是太迷人了。
　　
　　當時看起來這些東西在我的生命中，好像都沒有什么實際應用的可能。但是十年之后,當我們在設計第一臺Macintosh電腦的時候,就不是那樣了。我把當時我學的那些 東西全都設計進了Mac。那是第一臺使用了漂亮的印刷字體的電腦。如果我當時沒有退學, 就不會有機會去參加這個我感興趣的美術字課程, Mac就不會有這么多豐富的字體，以及賞心悅目的字體間距。因為Windows只是抄襲了Mac，所以現(xiàn)在個人電腦就不會有現(xiàn)在這么美妙的字型了。
　　
　　當然我在大學的時候，還不可能把從前的點點滴滴串連起來,但是當我十年后回顧這一切的時候,真的豁然開朗了。

　　再次說明的是,你在向前展望的時候不可能將這些片斷串連起來；你只能在回顧的時候將點點滴滴串連起來。所以你必須相信這些片斷會在你未來的某一天串連起來。你必須要相信某些東西：你的勇氣、目的、生命、因緣……這個過程從來沒有令我失望,只是讓我的生命更加地與眾不同。
　　
　　我的第二個故事是關于愛和失去。
　　
　　我非常幸運, 因為我在很早的時候就找到了我鐘愛的東西。Woz和我在二十歲的時候就在父母的車庫里面開創(chuàng)了蘋果公司。我們工作得很努力, 十年之后, 這個公司從那兩個車庫中的窮小子發(fā)展到了超過四千名的雇員、價值超過二十億的大公司。在公司成立的第九年,我們剛剛發(fā)布了最好的產(chǎn)品,那就是Macintosh。我也快要到三十歲了。在那一年, 我被炒了魷魚。你怎么可能被你自己創(chuàng)立的公司炒了魷魚呢? 嗯,在蘋果快速成長的時候，我們雇用了一個很有天分的家伙和我一起管理這個公司, 在最初的幾年,公司運轉的很好。但是后來我們對未來的看法發(fā)生了分歧, 最終我們吵了起來。當爭吵不可開交的時候, 董事會站在了他的那一邊。所以在三十歲的時候, 我被炒了。在這么多人目光下我被炒了。在而立之年，我生命的全部支柱離自己遠去, 這真是毀滅性的打擊。
　　
　　在最初的幾個月里，我真是不知道該做些什么。我覺得我很令上一代的創(chuàng)業(yè)家們很失望，我把他們交給我的接力棒弄丟了。我和創(chuàng)辦惠普的David Pack、創(chuàng)辦Intel的Bob Noyce見面，并試圖向他們道歉。我把事情弄得糟糕透頂了。但是我漸漸發(fā)現(xiàn)了曙光, 我仍然喜愛我從事的這些東西。蘋果公司發(fā)生的這些事情絲毫的沒有改變這些, 一點也沒有。我被驅逐了,但是我仍然鐘愛我所做的事情。所以我決定從頭再來。
　　
　　我當時沒有覺察, 但是事后證明, 從蘋果公司被炒是我這輩子發(fā)生的最棒的事情。因為，作為一個成功者的負重感被作為一個創(chuàng)業(yè)者的輕松感覺所重新代替, 沒有比這更確定的事情了。這讓我覺得如此自由, 進入了我生命中最有創(chuàng)造力的一個階段。

　　在接下來的五年里, 我創(chuàng)立了一個名叫NeXT的公司, 還有一個叫Pixar的公司, 然后和一個后來成為我妻子的優(yōu)雅女人相識。Pixar 制作了世界上第一個用電腦制作的動畫電影--"玩具總動員",Pixar現(xiàn)在也是世界上最成功的電腦制作工作室。在后來的一系列運轉中,Apple收購了NeXT, 然后我又回到了Apple公司。我們在NeXT發(fā)展的技術在Apple的今天的復興之中發(fā)揮了關鍵的作用。而且，我還和Laurence 一起建立了一個幸福完美的家庭。
　　
　　我可以非常肯定,如果我不被Apple開除的話, 這其中一件事情也不會發(fā)生的。這個良藥的味道實在是太苦了,但是我想病人需要這個藥。有些時候, 生活會拿起一塊磚頭向你的腦袋上猛拍一下。不要失去信仰。我很清楚唯一使我一直走下去的，就是我做的事情令我無比鐘愛。你需要去找到你所愛的東西。對于工作是如此, 對于你的愛人也是如此。你的工作將會占據(jù)生活中很大的一部分。你只有相信自己所做的是偉大的工作, 你才能怡然自得。如果你現(xiàn)在還沒有找到, 那么繼續(xù)找、不要停下來，只要全心全意的去找, 在你找到的時候，你的心會告訴你的。就像任何真誠的關系, 隨著歲月的流逝只會越來越緊密。所以繼續(xù)找，直到你找到它，不要停下來！
　　
　　我的第三個故事是關于死亡的。
　　
　　當我十七歲的時候, 我讀到了一句話:"如果你把每一天都當作生命中最后一天去生活的話,那么有一天你會發(fā)現(xiàn)你是正確的。"這句話給我留下了一個印象。從那時開始,過了33 年,我在每天早晨都會對著鏡子問自己:"如果今天是我生命中的最后一天, 你會不會完成你今天想做的事情呢？"當答案連續(xù)多天是"No"的時候, 我知道自己需要改變某些事情了。
　　
　　"記住你即將死去"是我一生中遇到的最重要箴言。它幫我指明了生命中重要的選擇。因為幾乎所有的事情, 包括所有的榮譽、所有的驕傲、所有對難堪和失敗的恐懼,這些在死亡面前都會消失。我看到的是留下的真正重要的東西。你有時候會思考你將會失去某些東西, "記住你即將死去"是我知道的避免這些想法的最好辦法。你已經(jīng)赤身裸體了, 你沒有理由不去跟隨自己內心的聲音。
　　
　　大概一年以前, 我被診斷出癌癥。我在早晨七點半做了一個檢查, 檢查清楚的顯示在我的胰腺有一個腫瘤。我當時都不知道胰腺是什么東西。醫(yī)生告訴我那很可能是一種無法治愈的癌癥, 我還有三到六個月的時間活在這個世界上。我的醫(yī)生叫我回家, 然后整理好我的一切, 那是醫(yī)生對臨終病人的標準程序。那意味著你將要把未來十年對你小孩說的話在幾個月里面說完.；那意味著把每件事情都安排好, 讓你的家人會盡可能輕松的生活；那意味著你要說"再見了"。
　　
　　我拿著那個診斷書過了一整天，那天晚上我作了一個活切片檢查，醫(yī)生將一個內窺鏡從我的喉嚨伸進去,通過我的胃, 然后進入我的腸子, 用一根針在我的胰腺上的腫瘤上取了幾個細胞。我當時是被麻醉的，但是我的妻子在那里, 后來告訴我，當醫(yī)生在顯微鏡下觀察這些細胞的時候他們開始尖叫, 因為這些細胞最后竟然是一種非常罕見的可以用手術治愈的胰腺癌癥細胞。我做了這個手術, 現(xiàn)在我痊愈了。
　　
　　那是我最接近死亡的時候, 我希望這也是以后的幾十年最接近的一次。從死亡線上又活了過來, 我可以比以前把死亡只當成一 種想象中的概念的時候，更肯定一點地對你們說：

　　沒有人愿意死, 即使人們想上天堂, 也不會為了去那里而死。但是死亡是我們每個人共同的終點。從來沒有人能夠逃脫它。也應該如此。因為死亡就是生命中最好的一個發(fā)明。它將舊的清除以便給新的讓路。你們現(xiàn)在是新的, 但是從現(xiàn)在開始不久以后, 你們將會逐漸的變成舊的然后被送離人生舞臺。我很抱歉這很戲劇性, 但是這十分的真實。
　　
　　你們的時間很有限, 所以不要將他們浪費在重復其他人的生活上。不要被教條束縛,那意味著你和其他人思考的結果一起生活。不要被其他人喧囂的觀點掩蓋你真正的內心的聲音。還有最重要的是, 你要有勇氣去聽從你直覺和心靈的指示--它們在某種程度上知道你想要成為什么樣子，所有其他的事情都是次要的。
　　
　　當我年輕的時候, 有一本叫做"整個地球的目錄"振聾發(fā)聵的雜志，它是我們那一代人的圣經(jīng)之一。它是一個叫Stewart Brand的家伙在離這里不遠的Menlo Park編輯的, 他象詩一般神奇地將這本書帶到了這個世界。那是六十年代后期, 在個人電腦出現(xiàn)之前, 所以這本書全部是用打字機,、剪刀還有偏光鏡制造的。有點像用軟皮包裝的google, 在google出現(xiàn)三十五年之前：這是理想主義的，其中有許多靈巧的工具和偉大的想法。

Stewart和他的伙伴出版了幾期的"整個地球的目錄",當它完成了自己使命的時候, 他們做出了最后一期的目錄。那是在七十年代的中期, 我正是你們的年紀。在最后一期的封底上是清晨鄉(xiāng)村公路的照片（如果你有冒險精神的話，你可以自己找到這條路的），在照片之下有這樣一段話："求知若饑，虛心若愚。"這是他們停止了發(fā)刊的告別語。"求知若饑，虛心若愚。"我總是希望自己能夠那樣,現(xiàn)在, 在你們即將畢業(yè)，開始新的旅程的時候, 我也希望你們能這樣：
　　
　　求知若饑，虛心若愚。
　　
　　非常感謝你們
　　
以上為史蒂夫.喬布斯在斯坦福大學2005年畢業(yè)典禮上的演講

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