Today I want to tell you three stories from my
life. That's it. 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 before I really quit.
Looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever
made. I could stop taking the required classes that
didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones
that looked interesting.
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
seven 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. Here's one example : Reed College offered
perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.
Because I had to take a calligraphy class, I learned
about serif and san serif typefaces, about what makes
great typography great.
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. If I had never dropped in
on that course in college the Mac would have never had
multiple typefaces or for that matter even proportionally
spaced fonts.
And since Windows just copied Mac, it's likely
no personal computer would have them. Of course it
was impossible to connect the dots looking forwardwhen I was in college. But it was very clear looking
backwards 10 years later.
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 some things - 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 found
what I loved to do early in life. Woz (Steve Wozniak)
and I started Apple when I was 20. In 10 years Apple
had grown from just the two of us in a garage into
a $2 billion company. And then I got fired. It was
devastating.
But something slowly began to dawn on me - I
still loved what I did. And so I decided to start over.
The heaviness of being successful was replaced by
the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to
enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company
Next, another company named Pixar, and fell in love
with an amazing woman who would become my wife.
Pixar is now the world's most successful animation
studio, 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.
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.
Don't lose faith. 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.
My third story is about death.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer.
My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs
in order, which is doctor's code for 'prepare to die'.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening
I had a biopsy. 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 :
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.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication
called The Whole Earth Catalogue. In the final issue,
on the back cover they put a photograph of an early
morning country road. Beneath it were the words : Stay
Hungry, Stay Foolish. It was their farewell message as
they signed off. I have always wished that for myself.
And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that
for you. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.
- Steve Jobs