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. 以下是Apple與Pixar執行長Steve Jobs 在2005年6月12日對全體史丹福大學畢業生的演講內容。
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. 今天，很榮幸來到世界最好的學校之一，參加各位的畢業典禮。我大學從沒畢業，說實話，這是我離大學畢業最近的一刻。今天我只說三個故事，不談大道理，就三個故事。 The first story is about connecting the dots. 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? 第一個故事，是關於人生中的點點滴滴是怎麼串在一起的。
第一個故事，是關於人生中的點點滴滴是怎麼串在一起的。 我在里德學院（Reed college）待了六個月就休學了，休學了18個月，直到我正式離開學校。我為什麼休學？ 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. 我在里德學院（Reed college）待了六個月就休學了，休學了18個月，直到我正式離開學校。我為什麼休學？ 這得從我出生前講起。當時，我親生母親是個研究生，一位年輕的未婚媽媽，她決定讓別人收養我。她執意認為我應該被大學畢業的人家收養，所以我出生時，她就做好一切準備，要讓一對律師夫婦收養我。但我出生之後，這對夫妻卻反悔，因為他們想收養女孩子。在等待收養的名單上有一對夫妻，也就是我的養父母；一天半夜他們接到來電問：「有一個人家不要的小男嬰剛出生，你們要領養嗎？」 他們回答「當然要」。後來，當我親生母親發現我的養母大學沒畢業、養父甚至連高中都沒讀完時，她拒絕在最後的領養同意書上簽名。直到幾個月後，我的養父母同意將來一定讓我上大學，她態度才軟化。 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. 十七年後，我真的上大學了。但我無知地選了一所學費貴得跟史丹福一樣的大學（聽眾笑），我工人階級的父母為了我的學費，花光所有積蓄。六個月後，我看不出唸大學有什麼價值，不知道這輩子要幹什麼，也不知道唸大學對「搞清楚我要做什麼」有任何幫助。我只知我在這裡花光父母所有積蓄，所以我決定休學，而且相信船到橋頭自然直。那個決定當時看起來很可怕，可是現在看起來，那卻是我一生中其中一次最好的決定。 休學之後，我不再上那些我沒興趣的必修課，我開始去上那些我有興趣的課。 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: 這經歷一點也不浪漫。我沒有宿舍，我要睡在朋友家的地板上，靠拾可樂罐賺來的五仙退費買東西吃。每星期天晚上，我會走七哩路橫過市區到印度教的 Hare Krishna 神廟吃頓好的（免費餐），我愛那裡的食物。我依循自己的好奇心和直覺，所曾涉獵和參與過的物事，後來證明全是無價珍寶。舉例來說： 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. 當時里德學院提供的書法班，大概是全國最好的了。校園內的每張海報和每個抽屜的標籤上，都有著十分美麗的手寫字。因為我休學，不必上正常的課程，所以就跑去上書法班，學著怎樣寫。我學了serif 與san serif 字體，學到在不同字母組合間變更字的間距，學到活版印刷偉大之處。書法很美，它有歷史感與藝術感，也是科學難以掌握的，我覺得它很迷人。 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. 我沒預期，學這些東西在我生活中有什麼實際的用處。不過十年後，在我設計第一台麥金塔（Macintosh）時，所學的東西全回來了。我把這些東西都設計進麥金塔裡，這就是第一台能印出漂亮字體的電腦。如果我沒有修那門課，麥金塔可能就不會有多種字體，也不會有能變更字體間距的功能。又因為視窗（Windows）剛好抄襲了麥金塔（聽眾鼓掌大笑），否則一般的個人電腦也不會有這些字體。要不是我當年休學，我就不會跑去上書法班，那麼世界上所有個人電腦可能印不出這麼漂亮的字體。當然，在大學的時候往前看，是無法把這些點點滴滴串在一起的。但是十年後回顧，一切也就清楚、明白了。 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. 我再說一次，你不能預先把這些點點滴滴串在一起；只有日後回顧時，你才會明白那些點點滴滴怎麼串在一起。所以你得相信，你所經歷的點點滴滴，將來多少會連結在一起。你總得要對某些東西有著這樣的信念，膽識也好，命運也好，生命也好，愛情也好，什麼都可以。這種看法從來沒讓我失望，它也讓我整個生命變得不一樣。 My second story is about love and loss.
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. 我的第二個故事，是關於愛與失去。 我的第二個故事，是關於愛與失去。 我運氣很好，很年輕就發現自己愛做什麼事。我二十歲的時候，跟Steve Wozniak在我爸媽家的車房裡，開始蘋果電腦的事業。我們拼命工作，蘋果電腦在十年間，從車房裡的兩個人擴展成一家擁有超過四千個員工、市值二十億美元的公司。我們推出了最完美的作品∼麥金塔（Macintosh），一年後，在我才剛邁入三十歲時，我被開除了。
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. 你怎麼能被你所創辦的公司開除呢？（聽眾笑）是這樣的，蘋果電腦成長後，我們找了一個在經營公司上很有才幹的人，頭 一兩 年，他的確幹得不錯。可是我們對未來的前景觀點不同，最後只好分道揚鑣。結果，董事會站在他那邊，在我30歲那年，把我開除∼是公開地把我掃出大門。這個我曾把整個生命聚焦的事業消失了，我不知所措。
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. 有好幾個月，我不知道幹什麼好。我覺得自己使上一代的企業家失望∼我把他們交給我的棒弄丟了。我見了創辦HP的David Packard和創辦Intel的Bob Noyce，跟他們說我很抱歉，我把事情搞砸得這麼慘。在公眾眼中我成了個徹底的失敗者，我甚至想離開矽谷。 但我漸漸發現，我還是喜歡我做過的工作，在蘋果所經歷的打擊，絲毫沒有改變我這方面的感覺。雖然我被否定了，但我還是愛做那些工作，所以我決定從頭來過。
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. 我當時沒發現，但現在回想起來，被蘋果電腦開除，是我所經歷過最好的事情。成功後的沉重壓力，被從頭來過的輕鬆所取替，因為做任何事情都不再局限於既定的模式。因而，我得以無礙地進入這輩子另一次最富創意的日子。
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. 接下來五年，我開了一家NeXT公司，又再開一家Pixar公司，並愛上了一個奇妙的女人，她後來 成為我 太太。Pixar製作了世界第一部電腦動畫電影〝Toy Story〞，現在是世界上最成功的動畫製作公司。然後，經歷幾次戲劇性及重要的轉變，蘋果電腦買下NeXT。我重回蘋果，我們在NeXT發展的技術成為了蘋果電腦後來復興的核心。我也 和 太太共組了美妙的家庭。
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. 我可以確定，如果當年蘋果電腦沒開除我，就不會發生這些事情。這帖藥很苦，但我猜病人就是需要這帖藥。有時候，生命就是會用磚塊砸你的頭。不要喪失信心。我深信能驅使我勇往直前的原因，就是熱愛我所做過的事情。你得找出你所愛的，工作如是，愛情也如是。你的工作將佔據你人生大部份的時間，若要在其間找著真正的滿足，唯一的方法，就是去做你認為偉大和有意義的事。
要成功，唯一的的方法是熱愛你正在做的事情。如果你還沒找到這些事情，繼續找，別停頓。正如你內心存在各樣美好的事物，每當你一找到，它就會告訴你。而各種美好事物的關係，只會隨著時間發展得愈來愈好。所以，在你未找到之前，繼續找，不要停下來。 My third story is about death.
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. 我的第三個故事，關於死亡。 我的第三個故事，關於死亡。 當我十七歲時，我讀到一則格言，好像是「如果你把每一天都當作是生命的最後一天，你就會輕鬆自在。」這對我影響深遠，在過去33年裡，我每天早上都會照鏡子，問自己：「如果今天是生命的最後一天，我還想做原本打算做的事嗎？」每當我連續多天都得到同一個「不」的答案時，我就知道我必須有所改變了。 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. 提醒自己「快死了」，是我面臨人生重大抉擇時，用來幫助自己判斷的最重要工具。因為幾乎所有的事∼所有世俗的期待、名譽、對困窘或失敗的恐懼∼在面對死亡時，這些東西都會消失，只有最重要的東西才會留下來。 提醒自己「快死了」，是最佳的方法去避免掉入「畏懼失去自己所擁有」的陷阱裡。生沒帶來，死不帶走，這沒理由叫我不跟隨自己的心去行事的。 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. 一年前，我被診斷出癌症。當日早上七點半我接受斷層掃描，在胰臟清楚出現一個腫瘤。我連胰臟是什麼都不知道。醫生告訴我，他幾乎可以確定這是個不治之癌症，預計我大概不能活超過三到六個月。醫生建議我回家，把事情交代好，這是醫生對臨終病人的標準建議。那表示，你得把未來十年裡想跟兒女講的話，在未來幾個月內講完。那代表你得把所有的事情都打理好，讓家人沒有後顧之憂。那代表你得說再見。 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. 我整天想著那個診斷結果。那天晚上我做了一次切片檢查，從喉嚨插入一個內窺鏡，穿過胃進腸子，又插探針進胰臟，取了一些腫瘤細胞出來。因我注射了鎮靜劑而不醒人事。我太太當時在場，她後來告訴我，醫生們在顯微鏡下看到那些細胞後，都大叫起來，因為那是非常罕見的一種胰臟癌，可以用手術治好。所以我接受手術，現在，我康復了。 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: 這是我最接近死亡的一次經驗，我期望我未來數十年中，這仍是我唯一最接近的一次。以前我認為死亡只是一個有用而純粹抽象的概念。經歷此事後，我可以更肯定地告訴你們：
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. 沒有人想死，即使那些想上天堂的人，也想活著上天堂。但是死亡是我們共同的終點，沒有人逃得過。這是註定的，因為死亡簡直就是生命中最棒的發明，是生命交替的媒介，它送走老人，把空間留給新人。現在你們是新人，但不久將來，你們也會變老，最後被送出舞台。抱歉說得這麼戲劇化，但這是真的。
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. 你們的時間有限，所以不要浪費時間去活在別人的生活裡。不要被教條束縛，不要活在別人的思考裡。不要讓別人的意見淹沒你內心的聲音。最重要的，是拿出勇氣來跟隨你的心、你的直覺，它們知道你真正想成為什麼人。其他事物，都是次要的了。
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. 在我年輕的時候，有本神奇雜誌叫做Whole Earth Catalog，當年可算是我們的經典讀物。那是位住在離這不遠的Menlo Park之Stewart Brand所發行的，他把雜誌辦得很有詩意。那是1960年代末期，個人電腦及桌上電腦版還沒出現，所有內容都是用打字機、剪刀和寶麗來（Polaroid）相機做出來的。雜誌內容有點像印在紙上的Google，也可以說它是35年前出現的Google∼它講求理想化，是充滿各種新奇工具與偉大見解的一本雜誌。
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. Stewart跟他的團隊出版了好幾期Whole Earth Catalog後，當時1970年代中期，我大概跟你們一樣大，它就出了停刊號。在停刊號的封底，有一張照片，影出清晨鄉間的小路，就是你們喜歡冒險、四處搭順風車旅行時經過的鄉間小路。 在照片下印了一行小字，寫著：求知若飢，虛心若愚。 那是他們親筆寫下的告別訊息，我總是以此自勉。當你們畢業，展開新生活，我以此祝福你們。
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much.
求知若飢，虛心若愚。 非常謝謝大家。
