喬布斯在斯坦福大學畢業典禮上的演講

史蒂夫·喬布斯，1955年2月24日生於美國加利福尼亞州舊金山，美國發明家、企業家、美國蘋果公司聯合創辦人。蘋果之父喬布斯深深影響着我們。下面小編給大家帶來喬布斯在斯坦福大學畢業典禮上的演講，歡迎大家來閲讀。

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，我很榮幸和大家在一起，參加這個世界上最好的大學之一的畢業典禮。我從沒有大學畢業。説實話，這是迄今為止我最接近大學畢業的一天。今天我要向你們講我人生中的三個故事。不是什麼大事，只是三個小故事而已。

The first story is about connecting the dots.

第一個故事講的是，把生命中的點連接起來。.

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，但是又在校園裏旁聽了十八個月左右，然後才真正離開。我為什麼要退學呢?

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.

這要從我出生前講起，我的生母是一個未婚懷孕的年輕大學生，她決定把肚子裏的我送給別人撫養。她強烈希望收養我的家庭具有大學學歷，所以在我還沒出生的時候，一切都已經安排好了，一個律師和他的妻子收養我。但是意想不到的是，在我來到人世的那一刻，他們突然反悔了，決定只收養女孩。因此，在收養名單上排在後面的我的養父母，半夜接到電話："我們有一個不在計劃之中的男孩，你們想要他嗎?"他們回答："當然。"我的生母后來發現，我的養母沒有大學畢業，我的養父沒有高中畢業。她拒絕簽署最終的收養協議。幾個月後，我的養父母承諾送我上大學，她才同意簽署協議。

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。但是，我很幼稚地選擇了一所幾乎與斯坦福大學一樣貴的學校。我的養父母都是藍領階層，他們的所有積蓄都用來付我的學費。讀了六個月以後，我看不到這樣做的價值。我不知道自己的人生應該幹什麼，也不知道大學如何幫我找到答案。而且，如果我在大學裏待下去，就會花光我的父母整整一生的積蓄。所以，我就決定退學了，相信這樣行得通。那個時候，我確實擔心害怕，但是回過頭來看，那是我的最佳決策之一。一旦我退學了，就能不上那些我毫無興趣的必修課，可以開始旁聽那些我有興趣的課了。

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:

這件事也有艱苦的一面。我沒有宿舍了，就睡在朋友家的地板上。退回可樂瓶可以拿到5美分，我把它們積累起來換東西吃。每個星期天晚上，我步行7英里穿過城市，到教會吃一頓免費的豐盛晚餐。但是，我還是心甘情願。跟着自己的好奇心和直覺走，我誤打誤撞遇到的許多東西，日後都被證明是無價之寶。我給你們舉一個例子。

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.

那時，Reed大學開設可能是全國最好的書法課。校園裏的每一張海報、每個抽屜上的每張標籤，都是優美的手寫體。因為退學後不用上那些常規課程，我決定去上書法課，學習如何寫出優美的字。在那裏，我學到了襯線字體和無襯線字體，學到了改變不同字母組合之間的間距，學到了版面設計如何才能優美。它是那樣的美、富有歷史感、藝術的精妙，科學不能捕捉到這些，我發現它太迷人了。

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.

這些東西，沒有一件看上去對我的人生有實際的價值。但是十年後，當我們設計第一台Macintosh電腦的時候，它們都幫到我了。我們把它們都設計進了產品。那是第一台有着優美操作界面的電腦。如果我不曾在大學裏旁聽那門課，Mac電腦就不會有多種字形，或者按比例間隔的字體。因為後來Windows操作系統抄襲了Mac，那麼很可能所有個人電腦都沒有它們。如果我沒有退學，我就不會旁聽書法課，那麼個人電腦可能就不會有它們現在的那樣漂亮的界面了。當然，我還在大學裏展望人生的時候，不可能把這些點都聯繫起來。但是十年後回頭看，它們之間的聯繫真的是非常非常清楚。

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.

再説一遍，你展望人生的時候，不可能把這些點連起來;只有當你回顧人生的時候，才能發現它們之間的聯繫。所以你必須有信心，相信這些點總會以某種方式，對你的未來產生影響。你必須相信一些事情----你的勇氣、命運、人生、緣分等等。這樣做從未令我失望，反而決定了我人生中所有與眾不同之處。

My second story is about love and loss.

我的第二個故事，是關於愛和損失的。

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.

我很幸運，在人生很早的時候，就找到了熱愛的事情。我和沃茲尼亞克在我父母的車庫裏創立蘋果公司的時候，我只有20歲。我們勤奮工作，十年後蘋果公司從一個車庫裏的兩人小公司，成長為超過4000個僱員的20億美元大公司。在那之前一年，我們剛剛發佈了最完美的產品----Macintosh電腦，我也才剛過30歲。但是接下來，我就被解僱了。你怎麼可能被一家自己創立的公司解僱呢?事情是這樣的，隨着公司的發展，我們僱來了一位我眼中的天才，與我一起管理公司。第一年，一切還算順利。但是那以後，我們對公司發展的看法出現了分歧，最終導致了分裂。最後，董事會站在了他的一邊。所以，30歲的那一年，我被解僱了，而且是在眾目睽睽之下。我整個成年人生的生活重心，離我遠去，真是毀滅性的打擊。

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

最初幾個月，我真的不知道幹什麼。我覺得自己太讓人失望，上一代企業家交給我的接力棒，已經被我掉了。我與 David Packard和Bob Noyce見面，試着道歉我把事情搞得這麼糟。我的失敗被大肆曝光，我甚至想過從硅谷逃走。但是，慢慢地，有一件東西讓我看到了曙光----我依然熱愛我做的事情。蘋果公司發生的問題，絲毫沒有改變這一點。我確實被否決了，但是我仍然熱愛這個事業。所以，我決定從頭開始。

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.

我當時沒有意識到，但是事後證明，被蘋果解僱是我一生中經歷的最好的事情。成功者的負擔，重新被初學者的輕快取代，對任何事情都不是很有把握。它解放了我，讓我重新進入又一個人生最具有創造力的時期。

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.

接下來的五年，我成立了一家叫做NeXT的公司，以及一家叫做Pixar的公司，與一個美妙的女子墜入愛河，然後結為夫妻。Pixar生產出世界上第一部計算機動畫電影《玩具故事》，目前是全世界最成功的動畫電影工作室。通過一系列事件的奇妙轉變，蘋果公司收購了NeXT，我又回到了蘋果公司。我們在NeXT開發的技術，現在是蘋果公司復興的關鍵。我還和勞倫妮組建了一個美好的家庭。

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.

我很肯定，如果我不被蘋果公司解僱，這一切都不會發生。雖然這個事件的滋味像藥物一樣苦不堪言，但是我想病人需要服用它。有時，生活會對你迎頭一擊，這時不要喪失信心。我確信，唯一讓我保持前進的動力，就是我熱愛自己做的事情。你必須找到你熱愛的東西。無論對於公眾，還是對於愛人，都是如此。你的工作是你人生的很大一部分，真正令你感到滿足的唯一方法，就是去做你心目中的偉大工作。做成偉大工作的唯一方法，就是熱愛你自己做的事情。如果你還沒有找到這樣的事情，那就繼續尋找，不要妥協。就像與內心有關的其他事情一樣，當你找到的時候，你自己會知道的。並且與所有偉大的感情一樣，時間越久，它的情況會變得越來越好。所以，不停地找，直到找到為止，不要妥協。

My third story is about death.

我的第三個故事是關於死亡的。

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.

十七歲的時候，我讀到一句話，大意是這樣的："如果你把每一天都當做生命的最後一天，那麼將來你最可能過上正確的生活。"它給我留下了很深的印象，過去33年來，我每天早上看着鏡子問自己："如果今天是人生的最後一天，我會不會願意去做今天將要做的事情?"無論何時，如果一連好多天，答案都是NO，我就知道需要作出改變了。

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.

記住自己不久就將死去，這是我發現的最重要的工具，幫助我做出人生中的重大決定。因為幾乎所有事情----外人的期待，內心的驕傲，對於失敗或出醜的恐懼----所有這些事情在死亡面前，都會消失，只留下那些真正重要的事情。記住你將要死，這是我所知道最好方法，免於念念不忘你可能會失去某件東西。你已經赤身裸體了，沒有理由不跟隨你的內心。

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.

大概一年前，我被診斷得了癌症。早晨7點半，我做了一次全身掃描，它清楚地顯示我的胰臟上有一個腫瘤。我那時甚至都不知道胰臟是什麼。醫生告訴我，已經可以肯定，那是一種無法治療的癌症，我的生命預計不超過3到6個月。醫生建議我回家把事情安排好，這是醫生對於"將要死亡"的表達方式。它意味着，你要試着把你原以為未來2019年才對孩子們説的事情，放着幾個月裏告訴他們。它意味着，你要確定把原件事情都安排好，使得對於你的家人來説，一切變得儘可能的簡單。它意味着，你要和一切告別。

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.

一整天，我無時無刻不想着那個診斷。當天晚上，我做了一個活檢，醫生將內窺鏡塞進我的喉嚨，穿過胃，進入腸子，又用一根針刺進胰臟，從腫瘤上得到一些細胞。我很鎮定，但是我的妻子(她也在場)告訴我，當醫生從顯微鏡觀察那些細胞時，他們開始發出驚歎，因為他們發現那是一種非常罕見的胰腺癌，可以通過手術治癒。我做了手術，現在感覺很好。

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刻，我希望今後幾十年都是如此。有了這樣的經歷，對我來説，死亡就不僅僅是一種純粹智力上的有用概念，我可以更確定地告訴你們：

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，甚至那些渴望升入天堂的人也不想死。但是，死亡是我們所有人都不可避免的人生終點。沒有人可以逃脱。事情可能本來就應該如此，因為死亡很可能是生活中最好的單項發明。它是讓生活改變的一種手段。它清理舊的一代，為新的一代創造空間。現在你們是新人，但是在並不太遙遠的某一天，你們將慢慢成為舊的一代，被清理出去。很抱歉，我不想説得這麼戲劇化，但是事實就是如此。

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，所以不要把它浪費在過其他人的生活。不要被教條束縛，那是其他人思考的結果。不要讓其他人的意見淹沒你自己內心的聲音。最重要的是，你要有勇氣跟隨你的內心和直覺。某種程度上，它們已經知道你真正想要成為什麼樣子。其他所有事情都是次要的。

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.

我年輕的時候，有一本奇妙的出版物，叫做《地球商品目錄》(The Whole Earth Catalog)，那是我們那一代人的聖經之一。它是由一個叫做Stewart Brand的人，在距離此處不遠的Menlo公園創造的。他詩一般地將它帶到了人世。那是六十年代末期，個人電腦和桌面出版還沒有問世，它是由打字機、剪刀和一次成像照相機做成的。它有點像紙質的Google，不過是在Google誕生35年之前。它充滿了理想主義，包含了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和他的團隊發行了幾期《地球商品目錄》，然後他們順其自然地推出了最後一期。那是70年代中期，我跟你們現在一樣大。最後一期的封底，有一幅清晨鄉間公路的照片，如果你喜歡冒險，那就是你可能會搭便車旅行的那種道路。在它下面有一行字："保持飢餓，保持愚蠢"。我總是希望自己可以做到這一點。現在，你們即將畢業，開始新的旅程，我也這樣地祝願你們。

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

保持飢餓，保持愚蠢。

Thank you all very much.

非常感謝各位。

(完)