MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!
This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, 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, it's 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 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 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.
Hebrews 13:5 -- " ......... I will never leave you and I will never abandon you."
Congratulations to all 5th generation of KTT Christian Fellowship leaders! A small boy gets down on his knees beside his bed one night, to pray for the first time in his life. The boy had been hearing about this man that lived a long time ago named Jesus, the son of God. He heard about Jesus from another little boy in school, named Jimmy. From the stories he heard Jimmy tell, this Jesus person is in heaven now and he can heal people and save people if you ask him too. The small boy starts to pray, he says - I want to talk to Jesus, if it’s OK with you God, for me to talk to your son. I don’t know the rules of how you are suppose to pray, so If I mess up God, please don’t get mad.
I just want Jesus to help my dad, he has been sick for a long time, and he has to take a lot medicine. The medicine costs a lot of money, so sometimes we have to go hungry so mom can buy the medicine dad needs, but I don’t mind that, they give us a nice lunch at school. Sometimes the other kids in school make fun of the clothes I wear, because they are not new and my mom gets them at yard sales for a dime, but that doesn’t bother me either.
My mom works real hard for every dime she makes. She gets paid a dime more than minimum wage, what ever that is? My mom works in a nursing home. Mom says the big shots that run the place really rake in the money for the people that have to live there. But they won’t spend it to make sure people can afford to work there, they spend the money to go on conventions, like to Las Vegas, and gamble the money away, while there is only half enough people working at the nursing home, that is needed to give decent care.
She works as a nurse aid, cleaning beds for the old people that can’t walk anymore, and can’t go to the bath room, when they have to use it. Sometimes my dad can’t walk because he gets so sick. He can’t make it to the bathroom and he wets himself. Sometimes he can’t even get out of bed so he throws up in bed and has to lay in it until mom gets home from work to clean him up and change the bed, like she does at work. She works a lot, so sometimes I have to carry dad's medicine to him in bed, Mom leaves him a bottle of medicine on the table beside of his bed before she leaves to go to work. If she has to stay over and work another shift, then I have to go get another bottle of medicine out of the cabinet for him.
Mom keeps a lot of extra bottles there for him. I play with the empty bottles because she can’t afford to buy me any toys, this makes her cry when she see’s me playing with only bottles. I tell her it’s OK, I pretend real good, I show her the empty bottles and say this one is a dump truck and this one is a fire truck. Other kids don’t want to play with me because I don’t have any toys and their moms won’t let them come to my house and they don’t want me to come to theirs. I think they are afraid they will catch the disease that my dad has, if I am around them, but it’s not catching, me and mom doesn’t have the disease and we are around dad all the time.
Jesus if you would just heal my dad, everything else would be OK. My mom wouldn’t have to work so may extra shifts, my dad could get a job like he use to have when I was first born. We would have money to buy food and everything, instead of buying so much medicine all of the time. I think it’s our fault my dad got this disease, he tells us all the time when he takes his medicine, that he has to take it because of us, my mom and me, and that it’s not his fault he has to take it.
Whatever we have done Jesus tell us what it was, so we will know and we won’t do it any more, because I can’t think of anything we did wrong. If you tell us, I know we won’t ever do it again, because we both love dad and we would do anything so he wouldn’t be sick anymore. I don’t know what the name of the sickness is that my dad has, but the medicine he takes for it, is called whiskey. Dad says it taste awful and burns all the way down, he drinks a sip of water after each dose.
If someone in our family has to be sick, then take the sickness away from my dad and give it to me. If it makes me die, thats OK, because Jimmy said, If I believe in Jesus, I would be able to go to heaven when I die, and I believe in you. My mom and dad don’t, so I don’t want them to die, because they would have to go to that place where you burn all the time. I tried to tell my dad about you today, but he said for me to get away, he wanted to be left alone.
I tried to tell my mom too, but she said her back was hurting too much to talk to me right now. So I’m the only one who knows about you here. Jimmy said we must all do God's work. If you will give me a list of chores to do, like my mom does, I will do them everyone. I don’t care how hard I have to work to save my dad, and mom. I’ll do it without complaining, not even once. I hope I didn’t break any of the rules on how to pray. I think this is where I am suppose to say Amen at.
Sometimes it’s hard to go to sleep at night, when your stomach is growling because it is empty. If I can’t sleep tonight, is it OK if I talk to you again later? If it won’t bother you too much that is? Because I really like talking to you Jesus. Will you be my friend?
The little boy didn’t have to hear the words with his ears, he could feel them in his heart, what Jesus said back to him. Jesus said: I’ll be with you always, I’ll never leave your side, what ever you ask of me, I will do for you. The prayer you said was just fine, it came from your heart, and spoken with faith, you can talk to me any time you like, I stay up all night too. The more you talk to me the better I like it. Tell me every thing and let me help you with it all, not just the big things, even the small ones too. I will be your best friend, because I have always loved you, and I always will.
It is MOVIE NIGHT tonight at CF =)I got this story via email, and I thought that it’d be worth sharing. I do not know if the story is true, but basically it tells us this very simple but often forgotten part of Christian living: the importance of prayer and faith. We often ‘forget’ to pray because we don’t have time, or we’re too tired. And when we do pray, we tend to doubt that God will answer our prayers. It is crucial that we have absolute faith in God when we pray.
Even if God doesn’t give you what you ask for, He still knows your needs, and He’ll meet them in due time. All we have to do in persevere in prayer and have faith. =)
The story (Read it carefully) :
I do believe that there is something to this " Power of Prayer"
"There are a hundred reasons to cry but a thousand reasons to smile!"
Louise Redden, a poorly dressed lady with a look of defeat on her face, walked into a grocery store.
She approached the owner of the store in a most humble manner and asked if he would let her charge a few groceries.
She softly explained that her husband was very ill and unable to work, they had seven children and they needed food.
John Longhouse, the grocer, scoffed at her and requested that she leave his store at once.
Visualizing the family needs, she said: 'Please, sir! I will bring you the money just as soon as I can.'
John told her he could not give her credit, since she did not have a charge account at his store.
Standing beside the counter was a customer who overheard the conversation between the two. The customer walked forward and told the grocer that he
would stand good for whatever she needed for her family. The grocer said in a very reluctant voice, 'Do you have a grocery list?'
Louise replied, 'Yes sir.'
'O.K' he said, 'put your grocery list on the scales and whatever your grocery list weighs, I will give you that amount in groceries.'
Louise hesitated a moment with a bowed head, then she reached into her purse and took out a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. She then laid the piece of paper on the scale carefully with her head still
bowed.
The eyes of the grocer and the customer showed amazement when the scales went down and stayed down.
The grocer, staring at the scales, turned slowly to the customer and said begrudgingly, 'I can't believe it.'
The customer smiled and the grocer started putting the groceries on the other side of the scales. The scale did not balance so he continued to put more and more groceries on them until the scales would hold no more.
The grocer stood there in utter disgust. Finally, he grabbed the piece of paper from the scales and looked at it with greater amazement.
It was not a grocery list, it was a prayer, which said:
'Dear Lord, You know my needs and I am leaving this in Your hands.'
The grocer gave her the groceries that he had gathered and stood in stunned silence.
Louise thanked him and left the store.
The other customer handed a
fifty-dollar bill to the grocer and said; 'It was worth every penny of it. Only God knows how much a prayer weighs..'
God bless, and do say a prayer. =)
What Faith Can Do - Kutless
Maegyvear and Edwin presented this song last CF, and the anointing that this song contains simply just moves hearts.
Do you know how powerful timidity can be? The devil can use it to make you do nothing, and in fact, make you feel the smallest you can be, that any average Joe is better than you, and that you can accomplish absolutely nothing.
Timidity comes with fear.
A fear to make mistakes;
fear to face the world.
Perhaps you're ashamed by your past, by the things you've shattered in your life, people you've disappointed. But be assured that when you've decided to put your FAITH in Him, He has cleansed you completely, from the inside out, and no matter how people around you perceive you to be, it's how God looks at you that truly counts.
I was studying for a Chemistry exam, and my friend borrowed my Organic Chemistry notes. I managed to compile everything into one sheet of paper, which is an entire myriad of mindmaps. And, my friend borrowed it to study, but after 10 minutes, she returned it to me, and said, "I can't understand it, because you're the one who made it, and I'm really not familiar with it."
Such a simple gesture reminded me of something, that only the maker and creator will know their creations best. In the same way, only God formed and made you, and only He knows you through the depths of your soul, and if He says that you can actually do and accomplish something, even if it's your weakness, you CAN do it, because,
your Maker said so.
Other people are mere souls that are carrying on this life journey WITH you, but they only know so much about you, and human nature makes them judge quickly, and some have influential powers to suppress you and make you think you can't.
But, God uses simple people to do great things.
God changes your weaknesses into strengths.
He is ready to transform and change you to reach further than your potentials, higher than your grounds. Potentials don't have to be natural born talents, or something you have a strong affinity for by birth, but they can be developed as you grow and mature. And as God can work through you and raise you up to be great children of His. His power is never limited by age, gender, circumstances, backgrounds.
The only limit you have is the one you put for yourself, because God goes way beyond boundaries, norms, and horizons.
God has been very real in my life in changing my fears into confidence, and in making me accomplishing something I could never do all my life.
He changed a drug addict and gang leader into a pastor;
He mended a broken family;
He gave hope to the lost;
He can do anything.
Tell me,
what can faith not do?
Based on the song ’Somewhere In The Middle’ by Casting Crowns
Somewhere between the hot and the cold
Somewhere between the new and the old
Somewhere between who I am and who I used to be
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find meSomewhere between the wrong and the right
Somewhere between the darkness and the light
Somewhere between who I was and who You're making me
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me
We’ve all been there, that one time when you are caught in the middle, between what you know is right and the curiosity within you which urges you to do what your heart knows you shouldn’t.
Sometimes, being the good guy just doesn’t seem to pay. Everyone calls you a goody two shoes, their scornful laughter piercing your very being. And so, even though you know what they do is wrong, you feel extremely tempted to join them just to be accepted, because when you came to Christ and He took over, your life changed and your friends couldn’t deal with it.
This is when we find ourselves torn between wanting to please man, and wanting to let the Potter mould us into beautiful vases.
Somewhere between my heart and my hands
Somewhere between my faith and my plans
Somewhere between the safety of the boat and the crashing waves
Somewhere between a whisper and a roar
Somewhere between the altar and the door
Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more
Somewhere in the middle You'll find me
We tend to find ourselves longing for more. We want what others have, and we constantly forget that what God has given us is the very best for us.
We say, “Lord, I trust in You to map out my future”, but then we go ahead with whatever plan seems best at the moment without looking to Him for guidance.
We hear the soft still voice of the Holy Spirit nudging us along the straight and narrow path, but there’s a louder voice speaking inside of us, telling us it’s okay to ignore God just this once. And for a moment, we hesitate, not knowing which voice to listen to.
We go to the altar of God in church once a week, and there we seek forgiveness. There we put on a mask and be truly repentant for the week that passed. But when we step out the doors of the church, do we go back to square one? Do we turn back to our old nature? Where did that repentant heart go?
The blessings of the Lord are sufficient to give us peace and calm and true joy. The love of God is sufficient to sustain us and to give us a reason for living. We look around us, and everything seems safe and nice. Then we look outside at everyone else, and even though we know that their activities are dangerous, they look like they are having fun. We want the luxury that others have. We want the kind of material comfort they enjoy. We want the excitement and exhilaration that they experience, even if we probably shouldn’t take part in it. Somehow, having the peace and joy of God just doesn’t seem to be enough.
Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control
Fearless warriors in a picket fence, reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end and we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences, the God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His or are we caught in the middle
We want to be in control of our circumstances. We want a God whom we can keep in a box and take Him out when we need Him, the same way you would treat a magic lamp holding a genie. And yet, we know full well that God doesn’t work that way. God wants so much to be the most significant part of our lives.
Our mouths say we surrender all to Him and we lay our lives at His feet, but our hearts tell a different story. Our minds limit the work of God in our lives by placing mortal limitations in front of an infinite God.
We say “Let Your will be done”, but we cling stubbornly to our own vision of how our future must look like. We say “You know what’s best for me”, but we go around telling God what we want Him to do for us.
Lord, I feel You in this place and I know You're by my side
Loving me even on these nights when I'm caught in the middle
Even through all those times, God proves time and time again that He is a faithful God, that He will never abandon us. He understands how confused we are and He knows that it is at times like that, that we need Him even more.
God is good, and He will never forsake us.
The question is, will we make a stand for Him? Or will we choose to leave Him?
You probably know that S.O.S. is a distress signal used to seek attention and to call for help. You probably would have heard that it is thought to stand for ‘Save Our Souls’, too.
We’ve all cried out for help and some point in our lives. Maybe you shrieked when you tripped, ripped your jeans and caused a bloody gash in your knee. Maybe you couldn’t answer a Mathematics question which you’ve pondered over for an hour, so you look to your class brain for help. Maybe you simply ran out of cash, and so you had to go to your parents, put on a pitiful look and ask them for extra cash, even though they just gave you your monthly allowance the week before.
And maybe, you’ve turned to God for help. Once, maybe twice, when you had nowhere else left to turn to. Maybe it was when your mum went for that test to see if she had cancer, and no one else could help you, so you turned to God with an S.O.S., for both your mother and yourself. Maybe it was when you went for that interview, and you didn’t know what else to prepare, because try as you might, you have no way of telling what you would be asked the next day, so you send an S.O.S. to God, asking for wisdom and peace, and for nice interviewers.
But apart from that occasional S.O.S. for the times when you’ve lost control of everything, when do you actually seek God? When did you last say "Hi" to God and talk to Him, just because you wanted to? When was the last time you loved Him, not because of what He can bless you with, but for who He is?
For some of you, being far away from home is difficult and trying, because the people you love aren’t there with you, and sometimes all you want to do is sit and talk with them. And so you get homesick, missing everything from your favourite blanket to your Mom’s cooking to that shopping mall which you are oh-so-familiar with, When was the last time you ever felt that way with God? When was the last time you felt the need to just talk to God because you love Him?
How often do you remember Him? On Sundays? On Christmas Day? When your exams are around the corner, and you feel like the weight of the world is upon your shoulder?
In contrast to our fickle nature and transient love for God, He loves us all the time, regardless of what we have done and where we are in life. You could be a drug addict who’s mind is constantly in another dimension, and He’ll still love you as much as He loves the pastor from the church down the road.
You might have just failed your exams, and you feel bitter, frustrated, thinking that you are the biggest failure in town, but He’ll still love you as much as He loves the smartest, most talented boy in town.
You could be dressed in clothes from the nearby pasar malam, and He’ll still love you as much as He loves the girl who sashays around in the latest Gucci outfit.
All He asks for, is that we love Him as our first love, and that we don’t just seek Him when we want His help, but that we seek Him all the time. Like a doting father who yearns for a good relationship with his children, so does God want to build a relationship with us which is based on love, and not our needs. Yes, He’s our God and He’s the King of Kings, but we don’t have to go through all the formalities to seek an audience with Him. We can simply come the way we are, devoting our hearts and lives unto Him.
You can talk about the simple things, like that crush that won’t go away, or a fear that you can’t seem to lose. You can bring your biggest troubles, and stutter your way through your prayer, but He’ll patiently listen to it all. He just loves you that much!
