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
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public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly
began to dawn on me that 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 retuned
to Apple,
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technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current enaissance. 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,
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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 that 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
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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
maple story mesos, 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
other's opinions drown
maple story mesos, 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,
wow power leveling,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 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,
maple story mesos, 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.
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