《Three Stories from My Life》歌词

[00:00:00] Three Stories from My Life - 英语演讲

[00:00:05] Commencement Address by Steve Jobs

[00:00:09] at Stanford University

[00:00:11] I am honored to be with you today

[00:00:15] at your commencement from one of

[00:00:17] the finest universities in the world.

[00:00:19] I never graduated from college.

[00:00:21] Truth be told, this is the closest

[00:00:24] I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

[00:00:27] Today I want to tell you

[00:00:29] three stories from my life.

[00:00:31] That's it. No big deal.

[00:00:34] Just three stories.

[00:00:35] The first story is about connecting the dots.

[00:00:41] I dropped out of Reed College

[00:00:44] after the first 6 months,

[00:00:46] but then stayed around

[00:00:48] as a drop-in for another 18 months

[00:00:50] or so before I really quit.

[00:00:53] So why did I drop out?

[00:00:55] It started before I was born.

[00:01:00] My biological mother was a young,

[00:01:02] unwed college graduate student,

[00:01:04] and she decided to put me up for adoption.

[00:01:08] She felt very strongly

[00:01:10] that I should be adopted

[00:01:11] by college graduates,

[00:01:13] so everything was all set

[00:01:15] for me to be adopted at birth

[00:01:17] by a lawyer and his wife.

[00:01:19] Except that when I popped out

[00:01:22] they decided at the last minute

[00:01:25] that they really wanted a girl.

[00:01:27] So my parents, who were on a waiting list,

[00:01:30] got a call in the middle of

[00:01:33] the night asking:

[00:01:34] "We have an unexpected baby boy;

[00:01:37] do you want him?"

[00:01:38] They said: "Of course."

[00:01:41] My biological mother later

[00:01:44] found out that my mother

[00:01:45] had never graduated from college

[00:01:48] and that my father had never

[00:01:50] graduated from high school.

[00:01:51] She refused to sign the final adoption papers.

[00:01:55] She only relented a few months later

[00:01:58] when my parents promised

[00:02:00] that I would someday go to college.

[00:02:03] And 17 years later I did go to college.

[00:02:09] But I naively chose a college

[00:02:12] that was almost as expensive as Stanford,

[00:02:14] and all of my working-class

[00:02:17] parents' savings were being spent on

[00:02:19] my college tuition. After six months,

[00:02:22] I couldn't see the value in it.

[00:02:24] I had no idea what I wanted to do

[00:02:27] with my life and no idea

[00:02:29] how college was going to

[00:02:31] help me figure it out.

[00:02:32] And here I was spending all

[00:02:35] of the money my parents had saved

[00:02:38] their entire life.

[00:02:39] So I decided to drop out

[00:02:42] and trust that it would all work out OK.

[00:02:46] It was pretty scary at the time,

[00:02:49] but looking back it was one of

[00:02:51] the best decisions I ever made.

[00:02:53] The minute I dropped out I could stop

[00:02:56] taking the required classes

[00:02:58] that didn't interest me,

[00:02:59] and begin dropping in on the ones

[00:03:02] that looked interesting.

[00:03:03] It wasn't all romantic.

[00:03:07] I didn't have a dorm room,

[00:03:09] so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms,

[00:03:12] I returned coke bottles for the five-cent;

[00:03:17] deposits to buy food with,

[00:03:19] and I would walk the 7 miles

[00:03:22] across town every Sunday night

[00:03:24] to get one good meal a week

[00:03:26] at the Hare Krishna temple.

[00:03:28] I loved it. And much of

[00:03:31] what I stumbled into by following my curiosity

[00:03:34] and intuition turned out

[00:03:36] to be priceless later on.

[00:03:37] Let me give you one example:

[00:03:40] Reed College at that time offered

[00:03:44] perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.

[00:03:47] Throughout the campus every poster,

[00:03:50] every label on every drawer,

[00:03:52] was beautifully hand calligrapher.

[00:03:55] Because I had dropped out

[00:03:57] and didn't have to take the normal classes,

[00:04:00] I decided to take a calligraphy class

[00:04:03] to learn how to do this.

[00:04:05] I learned about serif

[00:04:07] and san serif typefaces,

[00:04:09] about varying the amount of space

[00:04:12] between different letter combinations,

[00:04:14] about what makes great typography great.

[00:04:17] It was beautiful, historical,

[00:04:21] artistically subtle in a way

[00:04:23] that science can't capture,

[00:04:25] and I found it fascinating.

[00:04:27] None of this had even a hope of

[00:04:32] any practical application in my life.

[00:04:34] But ten years later,

[00:04:36] when we were designing the first Macintosh computer,

[00:04:39] it all came back to me.

[00:04:42] And we designed it all into the Mac.

[00:04:45] It was the first computer with beautiful typography.

[00:04:49] If I had never dropped in

[00:04:52] on that single course in college,

[00:04:53] the Mac would have never

[00:04:55] had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.

[00:04:59] And since Windows just copied the Mac,

[00:05:03] its likely that no personal computer

[00:05:06] would have them.

[00:05:07] If I had never dropped out,

[00:05:11] I would have never dropped in

[00:05:12] on this calligraphy class,

[00:05:14] and personal computers might not

[00:05:16] have the wonderful typography

[00:05:18] that they do.

[00:05:19] Of course it was impossible

[00:05:22] to connect the dots looking forward

[00:05:24] when I was in college. But it was very,

[00:05:27] very clear looking backwards ten years later.

[00:05:30] Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward;

[00:05:36] you can only connect them looking backwards.

[00:05:39] So you have to trust

[00:05:43] that the dots will somehow

[00:05:43] connect in your future.

[00:05:45] You have to trust in something -

[00:05:47] your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

[00:05:51] This approach has never let me down,

[00:05:54] and it has made all the difference in my life.

[00:05:57] My second story is about love and loss.

[00:06:03] I was lucky - I found what I loved to do

[00:06:08] early in life.

[00:06:09] Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage

[00:06:13] when I was 20. We worked hard,

[00:06:16] and in 10 years Apple had grown from

[00:06:19] just the two of us in a garage into

[00:06:20] a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

[00:06:26] We had just released our finest creation -

[00:06:29] the Macintosh - a year earlier,

[00:06:32] and I had just turned 30.

[00:06:35] And then I got fired.

[00:06:37] How can you get fired from a company you started?

[00:06:41] Well, as Apple grew we hired someone

[00:06:45] who I thought was very talented to

[00:06:47] run the company with me,

[00:06:49] and for the first year or so things went well.

[00:06:52] But then our visions of the future

[00:06:55] began to diverge and eventually

[00:06:58] we had a falling out.

[00:06:59] When we did,

[00:07:01] our Board of Directors sided with him.

[00:07:03] So at 30 I was out.

[00:07:07] And very publicly out.

[00:07:10] What had been the focus of

[00:07:13] my entire adult life was gone,

[00:07:15] and it was devastating.

[00:07:16] I really didn't know what to do for a few months.

[00:07:21] I felt that I had let the previous generation

[00:07:25] of entrepreneurs down -

[00:07:26] that I had dropped the baton

[00:07:29] as it was being passed to me.

[00:07:31] I met with David Packard

[00:07:34] and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize

[00:07:38] for screwing up so badly.

[00:07:39] I was a very public failure,

[00:07:42] and I even thought about running away

[00:07:45] from the valley.

[00:07:46] But something slowly began to dawn on me -

[00:07:49] I still loved what I did.

[00:07:52] The turn of events at Apple had not changed

[00:07:56] that one bit. I had been rejected,

[00:07:58] but I was still in love.

[00:08:01] And so I decided to start over.

[00:08:04] I didn't see it then,

[00:08:08] but it turned out that getting fired

[00:08:10] from Apple was the best thing

[00:08:13] that could have ever happened to me.

[00:08:15] The heaviness of being successful

[00:08:17] was replaced by the lightness of being

[00:08:20] a beginner again, less sure about everything.

[00:08:23] It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

[00:08:28] During the next five years,

[00:08:33] I started a company named NeXT,

[00:08:36] another company named Pixar,

[00:08:39] and fell in love with an amazing woman

[00:08:39] who would become my wife.

[00:08:43] Pixar went on to create the worlds

[00:08:47] first computer animated feature film,

[00:08:49] Toy Story, and is now the most successful

[00:08:53] animation studio in the world.

[00:08:55] In a remarkable turn of events,

[00:08:58] Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple,

[00:09:02] and the technology we developed at NeXT

[00:09:05] is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance.

[00:09:08] And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

[00:09:12] I'm pretty sure none of this

[00:09:17] would have happened

[00:09:17] if I hadn't been fired from Apple.

[00:09:20] It was awful tasted medicine,

[00:09:23] but I guess the patient needed it.

[00:09:26] Sometimes life hits you in the head

[00:09:29] with a brick. Don't lose faith.

[00:09:32] I'm convinced that the only thing

[00:09:34] that kept me going was

[00:09:36] that I loved what I did.

[00:09:38] You've got to find what you love.

[00:09:41] And that is as true for your work

[00:09:44] as it is for your lovers.

[00:09:46] Your work is going to fill a large part

[00:09:49] of your life, and the only way to be

[00:09:52] truly satisfied is to do what you believe

[00:09:55] is great work. And the only way to do

[00:09:59] great work is to love what you do.

[00:10:02] If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.

[00:10:05] Don't settle.

[00:10:07] As with all matters of the heart,

[00:10:10] you'll know when you find it.

[00:10:12] And, like any great relationship,

[00:10:15] it just gets better

[00:10:17] and better as the years roll on.

[00:10:19] So keep looking until you find it.

[00:10:22] Don't settle.

[00:10:25] My third story is about death.

[00:10:29] When I was 17, I read a quote

[00:10:32] that went something like:

[00:10:35] "If you live each day as if it was your last,

[00:10:38] someday you'll most certainly be right."

[00:10:41] It made an impression on me,

[00:10:44] and since then, for the past 33 years,

[00:10:47] I have looked in the mirror every morning

[00:10:50] and asked myself:

[00:10:51] "If today were the last day of my life,

[00:10:54] would I want to do what I am about to do today?"

[00:10:58] And whenever the answer has been "No"

[00:11:02] for too many days in a row,

[00:11:04] I know I need to change something.

[00:11:08] Remembering that I'll be dead soon

[00:11:12] is the most important tool I've ever

[00:11:16] encountered to help me

[00:11:16] make the big choices in life.

[00:11:17] Because almost everything -

[00:11:19] all external expectations, all pride,

[00:11:24] all fear of embarrassment or failure -

[00:11:26] these things just fall away in the face of death,

[00:11:30] leaving only what is truly important.

[00:11:33] Remembering that you are going to die

[00:11:36] is the best way I know to avoid

[00:11:39] the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

[00:11:42] You are already naked.

[00:11:45] There is no reason not to follow your heart.

[00:11:49] About a year ago

[00:11:52] I was diagnosed with cancer.

[00:11:54] I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning,

[00:11:57] and it clearly showed a tumor

[00:11:59] on my pancreas.

[00:12:01] I didn't even know what a pancreas was.

[00:12:04] The doctors told me this

[00:12:07] was almost certainly a type of cancer

[00:12:09] that is incurable,

[00:12:11] and that I should expect

[00:12:12] to live no longer than three to six months.

[00:12:15] My doctor advised me to go home

[00:12:18] and get my affairs in order,

[00:12:20] which is doctor's code for prepare to die.

[00:12:24] It means to try to tell

[00:12:27] your kids everything you thought

[00:12:29] you'd have the next 10 years

[00:12:31] to tell them in just a few months.

[00:12:34] It means to make sure everything

[00:12:37] is buttoned up so

[00:12:38] that it will be as easy as possible

[00:12:40] for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

[00:12:45] I lived with that diagnosis all day.

[00:12:50] Later that evening I had a biopsy,

[00:12:53] where they stuck an endoscope down my throat,

[00:12:57] through my stomach and into my intestines,

[00:12:59] put a needle into my pancreas

[00:13:02] and got a few cells from the tumor.

[00:13:02] I was sedated, but my wife,

[00:13:08] who was there, told me that

[00:13:10] when they viewed the cells

[00:13:12] under a microscope the doctors

[00:13:14] started crying because it turned out

[00:13:17] to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer

[00:13:20] that is curable with surgery.

[00:13:24] I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

[00:13:28] This was the closest

[00:13:32] I've been to facing death,

[00:13:33] and I hope it’s the closest Iget

[00:13:36] for a few more decades.

[00:13:37] Having lived through it,

[00:13:40] I can now say this to you

[00:13:42] with a bit more certainty

[00:13:43] than when death was a useful

[00:13:45] but purely intellectual concept:

[00:13:48] No one wants to die.

[00:13:53] Even people who want to go to heaven

[00:13:55] don't want to die to get there.

[00:13:57] And yet death is the destination we all share.

[00:14:01] No one has ever escaped it.

[00:14:03] And that is as it should be,

[00:14:06] because Death is very likely

[00:14:08] the single best invention of Life.

[00:14:10] It is Life's change agent.

[00:14:14] It clears out the old to make way for the new.

[00:14:17] Right now the new is you,

[00:14:20] but someday not too long from now,

[00:14:23] you will gradually become the old

[00:14:26] and be cleared away.

[00:14:27] Sorry to be so dramatic,

[00:14:30] but it is quite true.

[00:14:32] Your time is limited,

[00:14:37] so don't waste it living someone else's life.

[00:14:39] Don't be trapped by dogma -

[00:14:42] which is living with the results

[00:14:44] of other people's thinking.

[00:14:45] Don't let the noise of other's opinions

[00:14:48] drown out your own inner voice.

[00:14:51] And most important,

[00:14:53] have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

[00:14:57] They somehow already know

[00:14:59] what you truly want to become.

[00:15:01] Everything else is secondary.

[00:15:03] When I was young, there

[00:15:06] was an amazing publication called

[00:15:09] The Whole Earth Catalog,

[00:15:12] which was one of the bibles of my generation.

[00:15:14] It was created by a fellow

[00:15:17] named Stewart Brand not far

[00:15:20] from here in Menlo Park,

[00:15:21] and he brought it to life

[00:15:23] with his poetic touch.

[00:15:24] This was in the late 1960's,

[00:15:27] before personal computers

[00:15:29] and desktop publishing,

[00:15:31] so it was all made with typewriters, scissors,

[00:15:34] and Polaroid cameras.

[00:15:36] It was sort of like Google in paperback form,

[00:15:39] 35 years before Google came along:

[00:15:43] it was idealistic, and overflowing

[00:15:46] with neat tools and great notions.

[00:15:49] Stewart and his team put out

[00:15:52] several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog,

[00:15:55] and then when it had run its course,

[00:15:57] they put out a final issue.

[00:15:59] It was the mid-1970s,

[00:16:02] and I was your age.

[00:16:03] On the back cover of their final issue

[00:16:06] was a photograph of an early morning country road,

[00:16:09] the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking

[00:16:12] on if you were so adventurous.

[00:16:14] Beneath it were the words:

[00:16:16] "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

[00:16:20] It was their farewell message as they signed off.

[00:16:25] Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

[00:16:29] And I have always wished that for myself.

[00:16:33] And now, as you graduate to begin anew,

[00:16:36] I wish that for you.

[00:16:39] Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

[00:16:45] Thank you all very much.