* my journey *

Steve Jobs: how to live before you die
2005 史丹福大學畢業演講

我很榮幸今天能和各位在此，參加這場全世界最優學府之一的畢業典禮。（歡呼聲＋掌聲）我大學從沒讀到畢業，事實上，這是我最接近大學畢業的一刻。
I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

今天我要分享三個親身經歷的故事，沒什麼了不起的事，只是三個故事罷了。第一個故事是關於串連生命中的點滴。
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.

我在奧勒崗州Reed College 只待 6 個月就休學了，但之後又復學待了 18 個月，最後終於還是無疾而終，但我為何要休學？故事始自我出生前，我的生母是一位年輕、未婚的研究生，她決定讓我被領養，而且必需讓有大學畢業的父母領養，所以，一切按照計劃就是，我一出生便給一對律師夫妻領養，只是當我出了娘胎，他們才臨時決定要的是一名女嬰，所以，我那正在等候領養的父母當晚深夜接到一通電話，問說：「我們有一名意外誕生的新生男嬰，你們想領養嗎」？他們回說：「當然」。我的生母稍後發現我養母從未從大學畢業，而我養父更連高中都沒畢業，於是，她拒絕簽署最終的領養文件，但態度幾個月後就軟化了，因為我養父母承諾有天會讓我去讀大學。
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen 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 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've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later 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 go to college.

這就是我生命的起始，17 年後，我果真上了大學，而且還天真地選了一間幾乎和史丹佛一樣貴的大學，屬於勞動階級養父母的畢生積蓄都將用以支付我的學費，六個月之後，我卻看不到其中的價值，我不曉得我人生要幹嘛！也不清楚大學能如何幫我理出個頭緒，可是我卻正在花光父母一輩子所存下的血汗錢。所以，我當下決定休學，而且相信一切都會有個圓滿的結果，這個決定在當時看起來很可怕，但現在回頭發現，那是我做過最好的決定之一，我一休學就可以不用去上我沒興趣的必修課，並開始重尋看起來有趣的事物。
This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely 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 of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all 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 far more interesting.

不是一切都那麼羅曼蒂克，我沒有宿舍可住，所以睡在朋友房間的地板上，我會撿每個 5￠ 的回收可樂罐，以換取我的食物，每個星期天晚上，我還會走 7 哩的路，穿過小鎮到 Hare Krishna 印度教寺廟領取我一週的恩典美餐，我愛死聖餐了。大部份因為我的好奇心與直覺，而讓我人生失足的地方，稍後都成為無價的資產，我來為各位舉個例子。
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 five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 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. Let me give you one example.

Reed College 在當時也許是全美提供字型學教育最好的大學，整個校園裡每一幅海報、抽屜上的標籤都是精心手謄的文字，因為我已休學，所以不需要去上正規的課程，所以我決定選修字型學這門課，我學到了襯線和無襯線字體，分辨不同字母組合間所需的空間，還有活版印刷術的偉大之處，它在美學、歷史與藝術上的精湛之處是科學所無法精確捕捉的，我當時很為之著迷。
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 sans-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.

但之前我從沒冀望這會在我的生命有任何的實用，但十年後，當我們正在設計第一台麥金塔電腦時，全派上用場了，我們將字型學整個運用到 Mac 電腦上，讓它成為第一台具有漂亮活版印刷術字體的電腦。可如果我在大學時沒有單選了這門課，Mac 電腦就永遠不會有多種字體或組合勻稱的字體可用，而因為 Windows 只是模仿 Mac 電腦，結果將可能是個人電腦根本就不會有不同的字體（笑聲）（掌聲）。
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, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

而如果我當初沒有休學，我也不會去選修那堂字型課，結果個人電腦可能就不會有我們現在所熟悉的完美字體。
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

當然，我不可能在求學時就看出這些未來的點滴，但十年後回頭一看，就點滴在心頭了，重申一次，你無法預知未來，僅能回顧，所以你必需相信，生命中的點點滴滴有天都將連結一起，你必需要有信心，無論是你的直覺、命運、生命、業力等，因為相信這些點滴終究會連結在一起，可以給你信心朝自己的理想邁進，就算是引領你遠離傳統的路子，那都會很不同凡響。
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 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--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

我的第二個故事是有關愛與失落，我很幸運，很早就發現我的摯愛，Woz和我 20 歲時，在養父母家的車庫內創立了蘋果，我們很努力，僅僅 10 年的光陰，蘋果電腦公司從只有兩名員工的小企業，搖身成為價值 20 億，員工超過 4000 人的大公司，而那前一年，我們才剛發表我們最優的創造 — 麥金塔電腦，我才剛邁入三十大關，緊接著，我遭到解雇，你如何被自己創立的公司解雇？（笑聲）因為當蘋果成長之後，我們雇用了一位我認為能和我一起經營的有才之士，第一年，萬事順暢，但之後，我們對未來的願景開始分歧，最後我們吵翻了，而董事會站在他那一邊，所以，我的三十歲大禮是失業，而且是眾人皆知，曾是我整個成人生命重心的一切都沒了，而且結局淒慘，之後幾個月我真的不知道要幹嘛！我覺得我讓前代的創業家們失望，因為我把交到我手上的棒子接丟了，我和 David Packard 及 Bob Noyce見面，試著為自己搞砸的事件道歉，我是個公認的失敗者，甚至想要逃離矽谷，但有個東西慢慢地開始讓我頓悟，那就是我仍愛著我做過的事，發生在蘋果的事件並沒有改變這個初衷，我被拒絕過，但我仍懷著愛，所以，我決定重新來過。
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 twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, 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, and so at thirty, 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'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

當時我看不清，但後來我才明瞭遭到蘋果解雇是我人生中最棒的事，成功者的沉重負擔，由菜鳥的無憂無慮所取代，不再絕對肯定所有的事，解雇也是解放，我進入了人生其中一個創造黃金期，接下來五年，我創立了 NeXT、另一間是皮克斯，並和我未來的妻子墜入情網，皮克斯後來創造出全世界第一部電腦動畫電影《玩具總動員》，現在它是全世界最成功的動畫製片廠（歡呼聲＋掌聲）。
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 in 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 world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

在一個特別的機緣下，蘋果買下 NeXT，我於是重返蘋果，我們在 NeXT 發展出的科技，便是現在蘋果復興的核心，而Laurene 和我也共組了一個美滿的家庭。
In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.



我敢肯定以上沒有一件事會成真，如果當初我沒有被蘋果解雇的話，良藥苦口，但正是病人所需，有時，生命會像是在拿磚塊砸你的頭，但你不能失去信心，我深信當初能讓我繼續下去的原因，就是因為我愛我做的事，你一定要找出自己所愛為何，無論是工作還是你的愛人，你的工作將會佔去你生命的一大部份，而唯一能真正獲得滿足的方法是，做你相信那是了不起的工作，而唯一能做了不起工作的方法，就是你必需深愛自己所做的事，如果你還未找到，不要放棄、不要停，盡你全付心力，當找到時，你會知道的，就像所有了不起的關係，情況只會隨著年歲漸入佳境，所以持續尋找，不要停！（掌聲）
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's going to hit 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 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, and 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. Don't settle.

我的第三個故事是關於死亡，17 歲時，我讀過一段引言，內容大致是，「如果你能將每天都當作是生命的最後一天來活，有天你一定能做出對的決定」。（掌聲）我緊緊地記住這句話，從那之後的 33 年間，我每天早晨照鏡子時便自問：「如果今天是生命終結前的最後一天，我還會想做原本即將要做的事嗎」？而如果答案接連幾天都是「不」，我便自知必需做些改變，記得我將死這件事，是我所用過，幫我下人生重大決定最重要的工具，因為幾乎所有的事，所有外界的期望、所有的自尊、所有對難堪或失敗的恐懼，這些全都將在面對死亡時煙消雲散，僅有最重要的會留下來，記得自己將死是我所知，對抗自陷失落感迷宮最有效的方法，因為你已經赤裸裸地面對著生命，所以沒有理由不順應內心的聲音。
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 thing 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.

約莫一年前，我被診斷出罹患癌症，我在早上 7:30 接受掃描，結果清楚顯示我的胰臟有顆腫瘤，當時我連胰臟是啥都還不曉得，但醫師告訴我，這幾乎可以確定是無法根治的癌症類型，且活不過三到六個月，醫師建議我回家準備後事，這就是醫生宣佈待死的術語，也就是說，你要試著將往後 10 年想對孩子講的話都在這幾個月內說完，也意謂著一切都要確定交待完畢，這樣對你家人的衝擊可能會減輕些，更意謂著永別。
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 doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

當天，我一直掛念著那次的診斷結果，同一晚，我再做組織切片檢查，他們將內視鏡塞進我的喉嚨，穿過我的胃，進入我的腸子，再將針插入我的胰臟，然後從那顆腫瘤上取走一些細胞，我打了鎮靜劑，但陪著我的太太告訴我說，醫師在看過顯微鏡下的細胞後哭了，因為我的胰臟癌是很少見的可開刀醫治類型，於是，我動了手術，謝天謝地，現在已痊癒了。（掌聲）
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 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 doctor 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, thankfully, I am fine now.

這是我和死亡最近距離的接觸，而我希望這也是往後幾十年最近的距離，死裡逃生之後，我可以比之前當死亡激勵只是好用，而單純的學術概念時，更確定的告訴你們沒有人想死，就算是想上天堂的人也不希望透過死亡達陣，但死亡卻是大家共享的目的地，沒有人躲得過，這是注定的，因為死亡極可能是生命單一最優的創造，是生命的轉化媒介，清掉老舊、讓道新進，現在的新進是你們，但不久後的某天，你們將逐漸成為老舊，並遭清除，抱歉，這聽起來很戲劇化，但卻是千真萬確，光陰有限，所以不應浪費在過別人的生活，不要陷於教條之中，即依著別人的思想結果過活，莫讓別人的意見雜音，淹沒了你的內在聲音，最重要的是要提起勇氣、傾聽內心、跟著感覺走，因為這些本質多少早就清楚你想要達致的成就，其他都是次要的。（掌聲）
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 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's 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's 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, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

我年輕時，市面上有本神奇的讀物叫作「全球目錄」，當時被崇為一代寶典，由 Stewart Brand 創立，公司位於離這兒不遠的 Menlo Park，他將其詩覺觸感為這本雜誌注入生命，在 1960 年代後期，個人電腦與桌面排版都還沒誕生，所以一切都靠打字機、剪刀和即可拍照機，就像是紙本 Google，在 Google 出現前35 年，這本雜誌滿懷理想，內容盡載精巧工具與優異新知，Stewart 與其團隊出版了幾期「全球目錄」之後，公司在停刊號出版後走到了盡頭，那是 1970 年代中期，我正是你們這個歲數，在停刊號的封底，有一幅清晨鄉間小路的相片，就是那種你去冒險搭便車時會看到的景象，圖下有行字，「保持好奇，虛心接納」，那是他們的謝幕詞，保持好奇，虛心接納，我一直如此自我期許，現在，你們畢業開展新程，我也要如此祝福你們，保持好奇，虛心接納，感謝聆聽。（掌聲）
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, 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 thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies 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 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