Steve Jobs (1955-2011) 過身了,享年56。這陣子對香港的蘋果迷來說,心情像是過山車:9月24日,香港Apple Store開幕,香港這個小小的地方正式擁有Apple Store;10月5日(香港時間),發佈了iPhone 4S,而沒有大家期代的iPhone 5;10月6日,蘋果官網宣佈,Steve Jobs過身了。
我不算是一個標準的蘋果迷、不是蘋果教教徒,作為一個pc的pro user(很有自信地說),從前對Mac的操作思維及硬件霸權更是極之抗拒。但自從三數年工作需要用到Mac、兩年前因工作需要而擁有第一部iPhone,當真正體驗過充滿Apple式思維的生活之後,我就慢慢變成了其支持者。
然而,Apple對我來講,最大的魅力來源還是Steve Jobs。至今我所用著的Apple產品,只有一部iPhone 3GS及iMac,固然這些產品的優點及缺點都改變了我一些生活習慣,但影響我至深,還是Steve創立Apple至今的故事。在Steve 過身的今天,重讀他這一段演講,實在感到更深意義:
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.
這是我自小一直相信,但無法常常把持的信念,每當我感到自己的理想失去方向時,都會重溫這一段話。Steve 只活了56年,以現今來說,他人生在世不算長時間,然而,他真的改變了整個世界。這段話出自Steve 2005年在史丹佛畢業典禮的一場經典演說,相信大家都很熟識,我就用這段演說來紀念他。以下是演講的影片及中英文全文:
Jobs說,你必須要找到你所愛的東西。
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.
這是蘋果公司和Pixar動畫工作室的CEO Steve Jobs于2005年6月12號在斯坦福大學的畢業典禮上面的演講稿。
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,很榮幸來到各位從世界上最好的學校之一畢業的畢業典禮上。我從來沒從大學畢業過,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,三個故事就好。
The first story is about connecting the dots.
第一個故事,是關於人生中的點點滴滴如何串連在一起。
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?
我在Reed大學讀了六個月之後就退學了,但是在十八個月以後——我真正的作出退學决定之前,我還經常去學校。我爲什麽要退學呢?
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.
故事從我出生的時候講起。我的親生母親是一個年輕的、沒有結婚的大學畢業生。她决定讓別人收養我,她十分想讓我被大學畢業生收養。所以在我出生的時候,她已經做好了一切的準備工作,能使得我被一個律師和他的妻子所收養。但是她沒有料到,當我出生之後,律師夫婦突然决定他們想要一個女孩。 所以我的生養父母(他們還在我親生父母的觀察名單上)突然在半夜接到了一個電話:「我們現在這兒有一個不小心生出來的男嬰,你們想要他嗎?」他們回答道:「當然!」但是我親生母親隨後發現,我的養母從來沒有上過大學,我的父親甚至從沒有讀過高中。她拒絕簽這個收養合同。只是在幾個月以後,我的父母答應她一定要讓我上大學,那個時候她才同意。
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.
在十七歲那年,我真的上了大學。但是我很愚蠢的選擇了一所學費幾乎和你們斯坦福大學一樣貴的學校,我父母還處于藍領階層,他們幾乎把所有積蓄都花在了我的學費上面。在六個月後,我已經看不出唸這個書的價值何在。那時候,我不知道這輩子要幹什麼,也不知道唸大學能對我有什麼幫助,只知道我為了唸這個書,花光了我父母這輩子的所有積蓄。所以我决定要退學,我覺得這是個正確的决定。不能否認,我當時確實非常的害怕,但是現在回頭看看,那的確是我這一生中最棒的一個决定。在我做出退學决定的那一刻,我終于可以不必去讀那些令我提不起絲毫興趣的課程了,把時間拿去聽那些我有興趣的課。
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:
這一點也不浪漫。我失去了我的宿舍,所以我只能在朋友房間的地板上面睡覺,我去撿5美分的可樂瓶子,僅僅爲了填飽肚子, 在星期天的晚上,我需要走七英里的路程,穿過這個城市到Hare Krishna寺廟(注:位于紐約Brooklyn下城),只是爲了能吃上飯——這個星期唯一一頓好一點的飯。但是我喜歡這樣。我跟著我的直覺和好奇心走,遇到的很多東西,此後被證明是無價之寶。讓我給你們舉一個例子吧:
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.
Reed大學在那時提供也許是全美最好的美術字課程。在這個大學裏面的每個海報, 每個抽屜的標簽上面全都是漂亮的美術字。因爲我退學了, 沒有受到正規的訓練,所以我决定去參加這個課程,去學學怎樣寫出漂亮的美術字。我學到了san serif 和serif字體,我學會了怎樣在不同的字母組合之中改變空格的長度,還有怎樣才能作出最棒的印刷式樣。書寫的美好、歷史感與藝術感是科學所無法掌握的,我發現那實在是太美妙了。
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.
當時我沒預期過學這些東西,能在我生活中起些什麼實際作用,但是十年之後,當我們設計第一台Macintosh電腦的時候,我想起了當時所學的東西,並把這些東西都設計進了Mac。那是第一台使用了漂亮印刷字體的電腦。如果我沒沉溺於那樣一門課裡,Mac可能就不會有多重字體跟等比例間距字體了。又因為Windows抄襲了Mac的使用方式,因此,如果 當年我沒有休學,沒有去上那門書寫課,大概所有的個人電腦都不會有這些東西,印不出現在我們看到的漂亮的字來了。當然,當我還在大學裡時,不可能把這些點 點滴滴預先串連在一起,但在十年後的今天回顧,一切就顯得非常清楚。
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.
再次說明的是,你在向前展望的時候不可能將這些片斷串連起來;只有在未來回顧時,你才會明白那些點點滴滴是如何串在一起的。所以你得相信,眼前你經歷的種種,將會在你未來的某一天串連起來。你必須要相信某些東西:你的勇氣、目的、生命、因緣。這個過程從來沒有令我失望,只是讓我的生命更加地與衆不同而已。
My second story is about love and loss.
我的第二個故事,是有關愛與失去。
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.
我非常幸運,因爲我在很早的時候就找到了我鍾愛的東西。我二十歲時,跟Steve Wozniak在我爸媽的車庫裡開始了蘋果電腦的事業。我們拼命工作,十年之後,這個公司從那兩個車庫中的窮光蛋發展到了超過四千名的雇員、價值超過二十億的大公司。在公司成立的第九年,我們剛剛發布了最好的産品,那就是Macintosh。我也快要到三十歲了,在那一年,我被炒了魷魚。你怎麼可能被你自己創立的公司炒了魷魚呢?嗯,在蘋果快速成長的時候,我們雇用了一個很有天分的傢伙和我一起管理這個公司,在最初的幾年,公司運轉的很好。但是後來我們對未來的看法發生了分歧,最終我們吵了起來。當爭吵不可開交的時候,董事會站在了他的那一邊。所以在三十歲的時候,我被炒了。在這麽多人的眼皮下我被炒了。我失去了整個生活的重心,我的人生就這樣被摧毀。
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.
在最初的幾個月裏,我真是不知道該做些什麽。我覺得我令企業界的前輩們失望-我把從前的創業激情給丟了。我和David Pack和Bob Boyce見面,幷試圖向他們道歉。我把事情弄得糟糕透頂了。我成了公眾眼中失敗的示範,我甚至想要離開矽谷。但是我漸漸發現了曙光,我仍然喜愛我從事的這些東西。蘋果公司發生的這些事情絲毫的沒有改變這些,一點也沒有。我被驅逐了,但是我仍然鍾愛它,所以我决定從頭再來。
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.
我當時沒有覺察,但是事後證明:被蘋果電腦開除是我這輩子發生過最棒的事情。因爲,成功的沉重被從頭來過的輕鬆所取代,每件事情都不那麼確定,這讓我覺得如此自由,進入了我生命中最有創造力的一個階段。
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, 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.
在接下來的五年裏,我創立了一家名叫NeXT的公司,還有一家叫Pixar的公司,然後和一個後來成爲我妻子的優雅女人談起了戀愛。Pixar 製作了世界上第一個用電腦製作的動畫電影——《玩具總動員》,Pixar現在是世界上最成功的動畫製作公司。在後來的一系列運轉中,Apple收購了NeXT,然後我又回到了Apple公司。我們在NeXT發展的技術在Apple的復興之中發揮了關鍵的作用。我還和Laurence 一起建立了一個幸福的家庭。
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.
我可以非常肯定,如果我不被Apple開除的話,這其中一件事情也不會發生的。這個良藥的味道實在是太苦了,但是我想病人需要這個藥。有些時候,生活會拿起一塊磚頭向你的腦袋上猛拍一下。不要失去信心。我確信我愛我所做的事情,這就是這些年來支持我繼續走下去的唯一理由。你得找出你的最愛,對於工作是如此、對於你的愛人也是如此。你的工作將會佔據人生中一大部分,唯一真正獲得滿足的方法就是做你相信是偉大的工作,而唯一做偉大工作的方法是愛你所做的事。如果你現在還沒有找到,那麽繼續找、不要停下來、全心全意的去找,當你找到的時候你就會知道的。就像任何真誠的關係,隨著時間愈來愈好。所以繼續找,直到你找到它,不要停下來!
My third story is about death.
我的第三個故事,是關於死亡。
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.
我十七歲的時候,我讀到了一句話:「如果你把每一天都當作生命中最後一天去活,有一天你會發現你是正確的。」這句話給我留下了深刻的印象。從那時開始過了33年,我在每天早晨都會對著鏡子問自己:「如果今天是我生命中的最後一天,我會不會想完成今天要做的事情呢?」當答案連續很多次被給予「不」的時候,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,是我在人生中面臨重大決定時,所用過最重要的工具。因爲幾乎所有的事情,包括所有外界期望、所有的名聲、所有對困窘或失敗的恐懼,在死亡面前都會消失,只有最真實重要的東西才會留下。提醒自己快死了,是我所知最好的方法去避想著你將會失去某些東西。當你已沒任何東西,沒理由不能順心而為。
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.
大概一年以前,我被診斷出癌症。我在早晨七點半做了一個斷層掃描,在胰臟清楚出現一個腫瘤,我連胰臟是什麼都不知道。醫生告訴我那很可能是一種無法治愈的癌症,預計我大概活不到三到六個月了。醫生建議我回家,好好跟親人們聚一聚,這是醫生對臨終病人的標準建議。那意味著你得試著在幾個月內把你將來十年想跟小孩講的話講完;你得把每件事情搞定,家人才會盡量輕鬆;那意味著你要說「再見」了。
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.
我整天和那個診斷書一起生活。後來有一天早上我作了一個活切片檢查,醫生將一個內窺鏡從我的喉嚨伸進去,通過我的胃,然後進入我的腸子,用一根針在我的胰腺上的腫瘤上取了幾個細胞。我打了鎮靜劑,不醒人事,但是我的妻子在那裏。她後來跟我說,當醫生們用顯微鏡看過那些細胞後,他們都哭了,因為那是非常少見的一種胰臟癌,可以用手術治好。所以我接受了手術,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:
那是我最接近死亡的時候, 我還希望這也是以後的幾十年最接近的一次。經歷此事後,死亡對我來說,我可以比先前死亡只是純粹想像時,要能更肯定地告訴你們下面這些:
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.
沒有人願意死,即使人們想上天堂,人們也不會爲了去那裏而死。但是死亡是我們每個人共同的終點。從來沒有人能够逃脫它。也應該如此, 因爲死亡就是生命中最好的一個發明,是生命交替的媒介。它將舊的清除以便給新的讓路。你們現在是新的,但是從現在開始不久以後,你們將會逐漸的變成舊的然後被清除。抱歉講得這麼戲劇化,但是這是真的。
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 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.
你們的時間有限,所以不要浪費在重複其他人的生活上。不要被教條束縛,盲從教條意味著你是活在別人思考結果裡。不要被其他人喧囂的觀點掩蓋你真正的心聲。最重要的是,你要有勇氣去聽從你直覺和心靈的指示——它們在某種程度上知道你想要成爲什麼樣的人,所有其他的事情都是次要的。
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.
當我年輕的時候,有本神奇的雜誌叫做《Whole Earth Catalog》(整個地球的目錄),它是我們那一代人的經典讀物。它是一位由叫Stewart Brand的傢伙在離這裏不遠的Menlo Park推出的,他把雜誌辦得很有詩意。那是六十年代後期,個人電腦跟桌上出版還沒出現,所有內容都是打字機、剪刀跟拍立得相機做出來的。雜誌內容有點像印在紙上的平面Google,在Google出現三十五年之前就有了:這是理想主義的, 其中有許多靈巧的工具和偉大的想法。
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和他的夥伴出版了幾期的《Whole Earth Catalog》,當它完成了自己使命的時候,他們做出了最後一期的目錄。那是在七十年代的中期,我正是你們現在這個年齡的時候。在停刊號的封底,有張清晨鄉間小路的照片,那種如果你愛冒險,會在上面搭便車冒險旅行的小路。在照片之下有這樣一段話:「求知若飢,虛心若愚。」那是他們親筆寫下的告別訊息。「求知若飢,虛心若愚。」我總是希望自己能够那樣。現在,在你們即將畢業、開始新旅程的時候,我也希望你們能這樣:
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
求知若飢,虛心若愚。
Thank you all very much.
非常感謝大家。
「one more thing……」
如果想表達你的悼念,可電郵至官方的紀念電郵地址: rememberingsteve@apple.com


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