乔布斯演讲

时间:2024.3.23

乔布斯斯坦福大学英文演讲稿

Thank you. 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.

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 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.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen 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 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.

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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 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.

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 that calligraphy class and personals 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 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.

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do

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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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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 other's 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 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. It 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

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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.

谢谢大家。今天能在世界最好大学之一参加你们的毕业典礼,我感到很荣幸。说实话,我大学没有毕业,这是我生平离大学毕业最近的一次了。

今天我想和你们分享我人生的三个故事。就是这样。没有什么了不起的。只是三个故事。第一个故事是关于连线画图。

我在瑞德学院读了六个月就退学了,但我又作为旁听生混了十八个月左右,才真正退学。我为什么要退学呢?这还得从我出生之前说起。我的生母是一个年轻、未婚的研究生,她决定把我送给别人收养。她有一个很强烈的信仰,认为我应该被一个大学毕业生家庭收养。于是,一对律师夫妇说好了要领养我,然而关键时刻他们改了注意,说他们其实想要个女孩儿。然后我的排在收养人候选名单中的养父母在半夜接到一个电话,“很意外,我们生了一个男婴,你们要吗?”“当然要!”但是我的生母后来又发现我的养母没有大学毕业,养父连高中都没有毕业。她拒绝在最后的收养文件上签字。几个月后,我的养父母保证会让我上大学,她才妥协了。

这是我生命的开篇。十七年后,我确实上大学了,但是我很天真地选了一所差不多和斯坦福一样贵的学校,几乎花掉我那工薪阶层养父母一生的积蓄。六个月后,我觉得不值得。我看不出自己想做什么,也不知道大学会怎样帮我指点迷津,而待在这里,我正在花光父母一生的积蓄。所以我决定退学,并且相信一切都会得到解决。一开始很吓人,但回忆起来,这却是我一生中作的最好的决定之

一。从我退学的那一刻起,我可以停止一切不感兴趣的必修课,开始旁听那些看起来更有趣的课。

事情并不那么美好。我没有宿舍可住,于是睡在朋友房间的地板上。为了有口饭吃,我收集五分一个的旧可乐瓶,每个星期天晚上步行七英里到哈尔克里什纳神庙里改善一下一周的伙食。我喜欢这种生活方式。大部分我遵循自己的好奇和直觉跌跌撞撞做的事情,后来都证明是无价的。让我来给你们举个例子吧。

当时的瑞德学院提供可能是全国最好的英文书法课程。校园中每一张海报,

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抽屉上的每一张标签,都是漂亮的手写体。由于我已退学,不用正常去上课,我决定选一门书法课来学习怎么做到这一点。在这门课上,我认识了衬线和无衬线字体、知道了怎样在不同的字母组合中改变字间距、懂得了活版印刷术为什么伟大。这是一种科学无法捕捉的微妙,迷人又充满历史底蕴和艺术性,我觉得自己被吸引了。

我没有指望这在我的生活中会有任何实际应用。但是十年后当我们在设计第一台麦金托什机的时候,我又想到了它,而且我们把它全都设计进了电脑里。那是第一台有漂亮字体的电脑。如果我从来没有旁听过那门课,苹果电脑就不会有那么多字体,或者说是比例间距字体,又因为微软是完全拷贝苹果,很有可能,个人电脑就不会有这些漂亮的字体了。如果我没有退过学,我就不会去修那门写字课,个人电脑就不会像现在这样有奇妙的字体了。

当然,当我还在大学展望未来时是完全不可能把这些点滴串联起来的,然而十年后再回顾时,就显得很清楚了。再说一遍,向前看,是连接不起这些点滴的,只有往后看才行。所以你必须相信,那些点点滴滴,会在你未来的生命里,以某种方式串联起来。你必须相信一些东西——你的勇气、宿命、生活、因缘,随便什么——因为相信这些点滴能够一路连接会给你带来听从心的召唤的自信,即使它把你引到一条鲜有足迹的小路,那会让你取得巨大的成就。

第二个故事是关于爱与失的。我很幸运。很早就发现自己喜欢做的事情。我和沃兹在父母的车库里开创了苹果公司,那年我二十岁。我们工作得很努力,十年后,苹果公司成长为拥有四千名员工,价值二十亿的大公司。我们刚发布了最好的创造——麦金托什机,在这之前的一年,我刚过了三十岁,我就被解雇了。你怎么可能被一个自己创立的公司解雇?嗯,随着苹果的成长,我们雇佣了一个我认为非常有才华的人和我一起经营公司。一年左右时,事情进展得很顺利。我们在对公司未来的看法上产生分歧,最后我们大吵了一架。之后,董事会站在了他的一边。于是,在我三十岁的时候,我出局了,很公开地出局了。曾是我整个成年生活的焦点不见了,这很有毁灭性。好几个月我真的不知道该干什么。我觉得我让公司的前一代创建者们失望了,我把正在传给我的接力棒给弄丢了。我与戴维德·帕卡德和鲍勃·诺伊斯见面,试图为彻底搞砸而道歉。我败得如此之惨烈以至于我想要逃离硅谷。但我慢慢地想起一些事情。我还爱着我从事的行业。

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这次失败一点儿都没有改变这一点。我被拒绝了,但我还爱着。于是我决定从头再来。

当时我没有看出来,但事实证明“被苹果开除”是发生在我身上最好的事。成功的重担被重新起步的轻松替代,对任何事情都不那么特别看重。这让我感觉如此自由,进入一生中最有创造力的阶段。接下来的五年,我创立了一个叫NeXT的公司,接着又建立了皮克斯动画工作室,然后与后来成为我妻子的一个了不起的女人相爱。皮克斯出品了世界第一个电脑动画故事片:《玩具总动员》,现在它已经是世界最成功的动画工作室了。

在经历了一番引人瞩目的形势变化后,苹果收购了NeXT,我又回到了苹果。我们在NeXT开发的技术在苹果的复兴中起了核心作用,并且劳琳和我组建了一个幸福的家庭。

我非常确信,如果我没有被苹果炒掉,这些就都不会发生。这个药的味道太糟了,但是我想病人需要它。有时生活会给你迎头一棒。不要失去信仰。我确信唯一让我一路走下来的是我对自己所做事情的热爱。你必须去找你热爱的东西,对工作如此,对你的爱人也如是。工作会占据你生命中很大的一部分,你只有做自己相信伟大的工作,你才能得到真正的满足。如果你还没有找到,那么就继续找,不要停。全心全意地找,当你找到时,你会知道的。就像任何真诚的关系,随着时间的流逝,只会越来越紧密。所以继续找,不要停。

我的第三个故事是关于死亡。我十七岁的时候读到过一句话:“如果你把每一天都当作最后一天过,有一天你肯定是正确的”。这句话给我留下了深刻的印象。从那以后,过去的三十三年里,每天早上我都会对着镜子问自己:“如果这是我生命的最后一天,我今天打算做的事情会是我想要做的吗?”当连续很多天都得到否定的答案以后,我知道我需要改变一些东西了。记住自己就要死了是我遇见的最重要的帮助,它帮我做出生命中的重大选择。因为几乎所有——所有的外部期待、所有的荣耀、所有对尴尬和失败的恐惧——在死亡面前都会消隐,留下真正重要的东西。记住自己就要死亡是我知道的最好的方法,用来避开担心失去某些东西的陷阱。你已经赤裸裸了,没有理由不坚持你的梦想。

大约一年前,我被诊断出患了癌症。我早上七点半作了扫描,清楚地显示在我的胰腺有一个肿瘤。我当时都不知道胰腺是什么东西。医生们告诉我这几乎是

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一种无法治愈的癌症,我最多再活三到六个月。我的医生建议我回家,整理一切。在医生的辞典中,这就是“准备受死”的意思。就是意味着把随后的十年里要对你小孩说的话在几个月内说完;意味着做好善后,尽量方便你的家人;意味着你要说“永别”了。

我整日都与诊断书待在一起。那天晚上我做了一个活组织切片检查,他们将一个内窥镜伸进我的喉咙,穿过胃,直达小肠,用一根针在我的胰腺肿瘤上取了几个细胞。我当时服了镇定剂,但是我的妻子告诉我——她一直守在那儿,那些医生在显微镜下观察细胞的时候开始尖叫,因为发现这竟然是一种非常罕见的可用外科手术治愈的胰腺癌症。我做了手术,谢天谢地,我现在很好。

这是我最接近死亡的时候,我也希望是我未来几十年里最接近死亡的一次。这次死里逃生让我可以比以往只知道死亡是一个有用而纯粹知识的概念的时候更确信地告诉你们:没有人愿意死,即使那些想上天堂的人们也不愿意通过死亡来达到他们的目的。但是死亡是每个人共同的终点,没有人能够逃脱。也应该如此,因为死亡很可能是生命最好的发明。它是生命变革的推动者;它将旧的清除以便给新的让路。现在,你们就是“新”。但是有一天,不用太久,你们又会慢慢变老然后被清除。我很抱歉说得这么戏剧性,但这千真万确。你们的时间是有限的,不要浪费在重复别人的生活上。不要被教条束缚,那意味着会和别人思考的结果一块儿生活。不要被别人的意见的噪音淹没自己内心真正的声音。最重要的是,要有勇气听从你的内心和直觉,它们在某种程度上已经知道你真正想成为什么样子的人。其他一切都是次要的。

我年轻的时候,有一份叫做“完整地球目录”的了不起的杂志,是我们这一代人的圣经之一。它是一个名叫斯图尔特·布兰德,住在离这不远的曼罗公园的家伙创立的。他诗一般的触觉使这份杂志风靡一时。那是六十年代后期,个人电脑和台式机出现之前,所以这份杂志全是用打字机、剪刀和宝丽来相机制作的。它有点像在谷歌出现以前三十五年,平装的谷歌。它是理想化的,全文充斥着灵巧的工具和伟大的观念。斯图亚特和他的小组出版了几期《完整地球目录》,末了,他们出版了最后一期。那是七十年代中期,我和你们差不多大。最后一期的封底是一张清晨乡村小路的照片,如果你有冒险精神,可以自己找到这条路。下面有一句话,“求知若饥,虚心若愚”。这是他们签的告别语。“求知若饥,虚心

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若愚”。我常以此勉励自己。现在,在你们毕业重新开始的时候,我也希望你们能这样。求知若饥,虚心若愚。

非常感谢你们。

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