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.

Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

学院里的福利，WIN 7 Professional的正版序列号。好像是院里自己掏银子买的，学CS(Computer Science)的发个邮件就能要到。这意思是说咱毕业以后会为MS家族做出啥贡献么。。。还是说学费要的那么贵，良心发现，开始搞派送活动了么。。。

 

不过咱也终于可以摆脱VISTA这个垃圾系统了。。。

 

 

今天晚上的Bible study是有关信仰的，很多陈年旧事就又涌现在脑中。

 

在上帝面前，我曾经是一个异常叛逆的孩子，总是一副消极避世的样子，甚至咒骂着天父所给自己带来的那些挫折和痛苦。另一方面，自己却浑然不知天父对于自己的保佑。当我不停的愤怒和诅咒自己的命运时，自己的遇到的沉重挫折背后总会有人对我伸出援手。当我的母亲在医院生命垂危的时候，是上帝将她的生命延续，并给我带来了生活的希望和对于人生全新的理解。正像罗马书里所讲的：

 

“我们既然因信称义，就着我们的主耶稣基督与神和好；我们也凭着信，借着他可以进入现在所站的这恩典中，并且以盼望的享神的荣耀为荣。不但这样，我们更以患难为荣；知道患难产生忍耐，忍耐产生毅力，毅力产生希望；希望是不会令人蒙羞的，因为神借着所赐给我们的圣灵，把他的爱浇灌在我们的心里。”（罗马书 5：1-4 ）

 

患难使人坚强成熟，挫折让人心生希望。这种坚实的成熟和不熄的希望使人充满力量和内心平和，并且让人能够更好的与天父建立联系，通过知晓他的意愿，驱使自身的力量去完成所被赋予的使命。

 

婚姻其实就像人类与上帝，我们的创造者，之间的关系。圣经博大精深，但是却被一条主线所牵引，那就是上帝的承诺，人类对承诺的信实，和最后他对承诺的兑现。所以婚姻是上帝所赋予人类神圣的契约关系，就像在创世纪里所写到的，上帝创造了男人和女人，并且让他们在一起。

 

当我意识到自己是如此的软弱和罪孽深重时，天父的爱使我与耶稣基督相识，忏悔和拒绝自己的原罪，背负着十字架所带来的患难，最后追随主耶稣基督，让圣灵转化和改变自己。因为天父的爱，才使我能拥有这样的心路历程，并且能够让他的爱来唤醒一直沉睡在我心中的爱，并且能让我通过这种内心深处的爱来真正的去关心和帮助他人，为世人造福，来荣耀天父。正是这种爱才能使我真正的知晓和平，获得智慧，坚持真理，善待他人和拥抱天父。

 

我一直相信人类只有唤醒并运用上帝根植于每个人心中的爱，才可能获得真正会拯救他人的力量。这个世界已经充满了太多伤害和毁灭他人的力量了。我们要知道，伤害他人其实就是在伤害自己，对于别人的苦难置若罔闻，甚至落井下石其实就是在给自己未来的棺材钉钉子。

 

爱往往意味着同情，理解，接受和妥协的行为。美苏冷战时期，古巴导弹危机，核子战争一触即发，人类悬绕在被核武力量毁灭的边缘，赫鲁晓夫曾经对美国人意味深长的说：“我们双方不应该继续拔河，因为你们在绳子上打了战争的结，双方拉的越用力，结就会越来越紧，最后就必须要切断那个结。。。随之而来的后果如何，恐怕就不需要让我来解释给你们听了。”试想如果当时美国人不能够同情他们的敌人，并且站在敌人的角度去理解，接受和妥协，恐怕所有人类现在就已经灭亡了。最终，美苏之间对于对方的爱拯救了人类，而不是更加的仇恨对方。

 

人们说，婚姻是爱情的坟墓。我从来不把这句话真的当回事，因为这里所谓的爱情更多是私欲，甚至是肉欲的遮羞布。说这种话的人要么是找借口，要么是纯粹不加思考的跟风。真爱其实是一种男女双方对于承诺的信任，相信对方能够对自己真心相待，并且自己能够对对方全心全意。婚姻从来不是真爱的坟墓，而是对于是否是真爱的考验。假的是进了坟墓，真的却享有了永生，并且能不断的给人带来幸福和快乐。