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. Truth be told, I never graduated from college. 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.
With his first official visit to China scheduled for this week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has been at pains to ease frictions between the world's two largest trading partners. Despite its ballooning trade deficit with China and the loss of American manufacturing jobs, the U.S. remains a champion of open markets, Paulson said in a speech last Wednesday. (Time)
如果有讀者不清楚上例中單字ballooning的字義，而查字典時只看到其主要意義是the sport or activity of flying a hot-air balloon(搭乘熱汽球的運動或活動)，可能會覺得此種解釋莫名其妙。但若是依據該單字的上下文可知此文是在描述美中兩國的貿易緊張關係，而ballooning置於trade deficit前，我們大可猜測該字是用來形容其貿易逆差增加的程度，就像熱汽球一般扶搖直上，因此解釋為「激增」就極為貼切。
6.用字典查閱困難的字彙(Using the dictionary to look up difficult words)
I've been letting you down, down
Girl I know I've been such a fool
Giving in to temptation I should've played it cool
*The situation got out of hand
I hope you understand
It can happen to anyone of us
Anyone you think of
Anyone can fall
Anyone can hurt someone they love
(Their) Hearts will break
'Cause I made a stupid mistake
It can happen to anyone of us
Say you will forgive me
Anyone can fail
Say you will believe me
I can't take
My heart will break
'Cause I made a stupid mistake, a stupid mistake
She was kind of excited
A little crazy I should've known She must've altered my senses
'Cause I offered to walk her home (*)
A stupid mistake
She means nothing to me, nothing to me
I swear every word is true
Don't wanna lose you (*)
Anyone can fall
Anyone can hurt someone they love
Their hearts will break
'Cause I made a stupid mistake, a stupid mistake
VOA Special English是特別針對英語學習者設計的英語新聞聽力網站。此網站把即時新聞依照不同主題(美國歷史、藝術娛樂、教育、農業、生活、健康、商業、科技新 知、世界新聞等)做分類。每一篇新聞都有專人以適合英語學習者的速度錄製成聽力檔，讀者可以在閱讀新聞的同時收聽慢速的英語新聞，因此可以幫助讀者注意到 每一個字的正確發音，進而方便模仿錄音者的正確發音。若讀者平時對於英美人士快速的對話速度難以適應，可以從VOA Special English開始，只要先聽懂，就會獲得初步的成就感，漸漸地會更有信心面對真實情境的對話以及學術演說內容。
我想到我進女中的那個暑假的輔導課，第一堂課老師走進教室 就是劈頭都是英文，我們都愣了一下。接著我的天啊，竟然還要叫大家用英文自我介紹，當然大部分的人都是Hi, my name is 阿貓阿狗, I like to play basketball and listen to music ,這樣就沒了，但是我覺得這是一個很大的進展，因為有多少人是第一次在妳的同儕面前開口說英文，萬是總事起頭難…其實妳仔細想想，並不這樣可怕，妳開口以 後就會發現其實沒有想像的那麼難了。
第一堂課，老師給我們一篇新聞的文章讀，原文是這樣的：”The powerful winds and torrential rains brought by Typhoon Aere inflicted damage to cities and counties in northern Taiwan before it moved toward to the southeastern coast of China yesterday. It left at least seven people dead and nine missing while triggering land and rock slides that destroyed hundreds of houses in mountainous regions and knocked out power and water supplies to millions of people in Taiwan. The work of getting Taiwan’s roads back in order in the wake of typhoon Aere started yesterday as two days of rain and high winds passed.” 為了說明我的狀況，文中紅色的字都是我當時不認識的(各位不要覺得我在說笑，我可是講義還留者為憑的，不會的字全用紅筆圈了起來)，而且這還只是單字，不 包括片語、動詞短語、慣用語喔。我花了一個晚上查單字，但糟糕的是，我連句子的結構都不清楚，結尾是ed的到底是動詞過去式還是形容詞都不曉得，查到 damage也不知道是動詞還是名詞，下次上課也是霧茫茫。令我印象深刻的是，當時坐在我旁邊的一個同學，竟然舉手自告奮勇要告訴大家中文翻譯，然後她用 女主播一般的語氣說：「艾利颱風帶來的強勁風勢與豪雨已經在台灣北部數個縣市造成嚴重災情……」我當場就愣住了，天啊，這真的是高中一年級的學生嗎？我怎 麼都不知道她的國中程度這麼好！她念完坐下以後，我半是驚嘆半是疑惑地問她，「同學，妳到底是怎麼把這整篇文章看懂的？」她說，「我查了兩個晚上。」我當 時得到一個結論：我看不懂是因為我只查了一個晚上，假如我像她一樣多看一個晚上就會懂了。這樣說或許有些單純地過於可愛，不過我絕對相信，想要精通一個學 問，完完全全的投入和努力是必需的，少不了。
還有妳說老師一進教室霹靂啪啦都是英文，我想時間久了會有它的效果的。就像我高一的時候，每次看 到order就很不爽，因為明明老師說in order to是「為了」，但是為什麼有時候in order, back to order又是「秩序」？但時間久了以後，很自然聽到in order to就知道是一個表示目的的短語，不會再去繞腦筋了。而且慢慢妳會發現，聽懂的東西越來越多，單字也越來越熟，慢慢地它們願意跟妳做好朋友了。教育心理學 的理論也指出，一個單字看到七次以後，幾乎大家都會記起來，所以我想如果妳有花時間在讀書，這些都不會是問題。進步的過程很緩慢但是很值得，它會讓妳忘記 原先那些辛苦，不光是讀書，做什麼事都一樣。
另外，我想「靠著自己學習」是很重要的。以前我的老師就曾經說，”As a matter of fact, I do believe that what I can teach you is limited since all of you are capable of learning on your own, but I do hope that I can instill in you a positive attitude toward learning and of course life.” 我想這是對的，妳不會永遠靠著老師，老師只是教妳態度，教妳相信自己，教妳怎麼利用學習資源，教妳積極去面對不管是一個學科還是妳未來的路。沒有一個老師 會故意想要傷害他的學生，因為那是身分帶來的期許，看到自己的學生以後走的遠，過的快樂健全，我想是每一個為人師表的人的心願。
自己學習的資源有很多，我想最主要是字典。現在很時興電子辭典，因為輕巧方便攜帶，查起來又快，所以幾乎是人手一機。但 電子辭典的問題是通常只有中文解釋，沒有英英解釋，有一些語感上微妙的不同(nuance)或字詞後蘊藏的意涵(connotation)無法表達出來， 所以對於想學好英文的人，我想擁有一本好的字典是很重要的。我自己很推薦Webster’s Third New International Dictionary，這本字典除了解釋之外，還有字源分析(etymology)，單詞第一次在文學作品被使用的例句，都收錄齊全。唯一的缺點是這本字 典比較老了，所以對於新字(比方說Ilunga, plenipotentiary, Shlimazl, Altahmam, Selathirupavar這種新興的字)比較沒轍，這個時候善用網路資源吧，偉大的google是有求必應的。學妹也不要擔心買不到或買不起這本字 典，因為妳們一走進圖書館左手邊架子上就有一本，以前我常常用這本字典，有時候我一個星期以後才又到圖書館，奇怪怎麼還停在我上次查的那個字那一頁？可見 學校有給妳們資源，卻沒有人好好使用。如果妳們嫌圖書館很遠的話，網路上有這個字典http://www.m-w.com/ 也是不錯用的資源。還有OED(Oxford English Dictionary)，在網路上也有一個免費的版本，http://dictionary.oed.com/ 算是個權威字典。
至 於課內的東西，我想老師會教妳們準備，我也就不多提了，以免英文科老師心癢癢...嗯，講一點點重點吧，所謂phrasal verbs搭配不同的字就會有不同的涵義，比如說pay off (All the hard work finally pays off.), pay back (I cannot think of a way to pay you back.), pay for (One day you'll have to pay for your foolishness.)...這些都是很重要的。假如妳要說一個人暈厥過去了(pass out)卻說成she passed away at the moment(她當場死掉)，這不是很囧嗎！單字要一組一組的記，尤其用法、意義相近的(provide, supply...etc)這些易混淆的用法要多花功夫去記。介係詞的搭配也很重要，尤其要注意及物動詞的後面不會再加上介系詞(會直接帶入受詞)，比方 說enjoy(vt) sth; feast(vi) on sth是不同的；我們可以說I really appreciate your help.或是I will really appreciate it if you can help me. 這裡it不能省，因為appreciate是個及物動詞。這些都是小事，但是考試又偏偏很愛出現，妳們稍微統計一下，是不是每次被扣分的地方，其實有一半 以上都是同樣的東西？詞性，時態的歸類等等文法，分詞構句中孤懸修飾語的誤用(Seeing me with his girlfriend, his smile is frozen on his face. "his smile"要怎麼see?); 一個句子中，主詞是單數(動詞要加s)或複數(動詞維持不變)要分辨清楚(The prevalence of incorrect instances of the use of the apostrophe...together with the abandonment of it by many business firms...suggest that the time is close at hand when this moderately useful device should be abandoned. 注意到錯了嗎？together with在這個句子裡是介系詞，不是連接詞，所以主詞是The prevalence of incorrect instances of the use of the apostrophe，是單數，動詞應該是suggests才對...along with, together with, as well as都是這樣用); 各種語態中動詞要怎樣變化(比方說，When his fellowship expired he was offered a rectorship at Boxworth on condition that he married the deceased rector's daughter. 看出錯誤了嗎？on condition that是"在...前提下"，所以其實是on condition that he (should) marry...should被省略，所以marry應該要用原形); 每個字彙有不同的意義要分辨清楚，infer(推斷→聽者的動作，是接受訊息、統整訊息以後得到結論) 不等於 imply (暗示→原本就有的定見或想法，用不明白的方式表達給聽者或訊息接受者); 諸如此類例子比比皆是，學妹要是能掌握這一些內容，馬上就會變成出題老師肚子裡的蛔蟲，要拿個80分以上我想不是難事。
平時如何增強英聽實力~讓聽英文成為每天的例行公事 
