Thank you. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college. 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.

很榮幸和大家一道參加這所世界上最好的一座大學(xué)的畢業(yè)典禮。我大學(xué)沒畢業(yè)，說實話，這是我第一次離大學(xué)畢業(yè)典禮這么近。今天我想給大家講三個我自己的故事，不講別的，也不講大道理，就講三個故事。

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?

第一個故事講的是點與點之間的關(guān)系。我在里德學(xué)院(Reed College)只讀了六個月就退學(xué)了，此后便在學(xué)校里旁聽，又過了大約一年半，我徹底離開。那么，我為什么退學(xué)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.

這得從我出生前講起。我的生母是一名年輕的未婚在校研究生，她決定將我送給別人收養(yǎng)。她非常希望收養(yǎng)我的是有大學(xué)學(xué)歷的人，所以把一切都安排好了，我一出生就交給一對律師夫婦收養(yǎng)。沒想到我落地的霎那間，那對夫婦卻決定收養(yǎng)一名女孩。就這樣，我的養(yǎng)父母─當(dāng)時他們還在登記冊上排隊等著呢─半夜三更接到一個電話: “我們這兒有一個沒人要的男嬰，你們要么?”“當(dāng)然要”他們回答。但是，我的生母后來發(fā)現(xiàn)我的養(yǎng)母不是大學(xué)畢業(yè)生，我的養(yǎng)父甚至連中學(xué)都沒有畢業(yè)，所以她拒絕在最后的收養(yǎng)文件上簽字。不過，沒過幾個月她就心軟了，因為我的養(yǎng)父母許諾日后一定送我上大學(xué)。

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。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:

17 年后，我真的進(jìn)了大學(xué)。當(dāng)時我很天真，選了一所學(xué)費幾乎和斯坦福大學(xué)一樣昂貴的學(xué)校，當(dāng)工人的養(yǎng)父母傾其所有的積蓄為我支付了大學(xué)學(xué)費。讀了六個月后，我卻看不出上學(xué)有什么意義。我既不知道自己這一生想干什么，也不知道大學(xué)是否能夠幫我弄明白自己想干什么。這時，我就要花光父母一輩子節(jié)省下來的錢了。所以，我決定退學(xué)，并且堅信日后會證明我這樣做是對的。當(dāng)年做出這個決定時心里直打鼓，但現(xiàn)在回想起來，這還真是我有生以來做出的最好的決定之一。從退學(xué)那一刻起，我就可以不再選那些我毫無興趣的必修課，開始旁聽一些看上去有意思的課。那些日子一點兒都不浪漫。我沒有宿舍，只能睡在朋友房間的地板上。我去退還可樂瓶，用那五分錢的押金來買吃的。每個星期天晚上我都要走七英里，到城那頭的黑爾-科里施納禮拜堂去，吃每周才能享用一次的美餐。我喜歡這樣。我憑著好奇心和直覺所干的這些事情，有許多后來都證明是無價之寶。我給大家舉個例子:

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.

當(dāng)時，里德學(xué)院的書法課大概是全國最好的。校園里所有的公告欄和每個抽屜標(biāo)簽上的字都寫得非常漂亮。當(dāng)時我已經(jīng)退學(xué)，不用正常上課，所以我決定選一門書法課，學(xué)學(xué)怎么寫好字。我學(xué)習(xí)寫帶短截線和不帶短截線的印刷字體，根據(jù)不同字母組合調(diào)整其間距，以及怎樣把版式調(diào)整得好上加好。這門課太棒了，既有歷史價值，又有藝術(shù)造詣，這一點科學(xué)就做不到，而我覺得它妙不可言。

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(dāng)時我并不指望書法在以后的生活中能有什么實用價值。但是，十年之后，我們在設(shè)計第一臺 Macintosh 計算機(jī)時，它一下子浮現(xiàn)在我眼前。于是，我們把這些東西全都設(shè)計進(jìn)了計算機(jī)中。這是第一臺有這么漂亮的文字版式的計算機(jī)。要不是我當(dāng)初在大學(xué)里偶然選了這么一門課，Macintosh 計算機(jī)絕不會有那么多種印刷字體或間距安排合理的字號。要不是 Windows 照搬了 Macintosh，個人電腦可能不會有這些字體和字號。要不是退了學(xué)，我決不會碰巧選了這門書法課，個人電腦也可能不會有現(xiàn)在這些漂亮的版式了。當(dāng)然，我在大學(xué)里不可能從這一點上看到它與將來的關(guān)系。十年之后再回頭看，兩者之間的關(guān)系就非常、非常清楚了。

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.

你們同樣不可能從現(xiàn)在這個點上看到將來;只有回頭看時，才會發(fā)現(xiàn)它們之間的關(guān)系。所以，要相信這些點遲早會連接到一起。你們必須信賴某些東西─直覺、歸宿、生命，還有業(yè)力，等等。這樣做從來沒有讓我的希望落空過，而且還徹底改變了我的生活。

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. 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.

我的第二個故事是關(guān)于好惡與得失。幸運的是，我在很小的時候就發(fā)現(xiàn)自己喜歡做什么。我在 20 歲時和沃茲在我父母的車庫里辦起了蘋果公司。我們干得很賣力，十年后，蘋果公司就從車庫里我們兩個人發(fā)展成為一個擁有 20 億元資產(chǎn)、4,000 名員工的大企業(yè)。那時，我們剛剛推出了我們最好的產(chǎn)品─ Macintosh 電腦─那是在第 9 年，我剛滿 30 歲。可后來，我被解雇了。你怎么會被自己辦的公司解雇呢?是這樣，隨著蘋果公司越做越大，我們聘了一位我認(rèn)為非常有才華的人與我一道管理公司。在開始的一年多里，一切都很順利。可是，隨后我倆對公司前景的看法開始出現(xiàn)分歧，最后我倆反目了。這時，董事會站在了他那一邊，所以在 30 歲那年，我離開了公司，而且這件事鬧得滿城風(fēng)雨。我成年后的整個生活重心都沒有了，這使我心力交瘁。

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.

一連幾個月，我真的不知道應(yīng)該怎么辦。我感到自己給老一代的創(chuàng)業(yè)者丟了臉─因為我扔掉了交到自己手里的接力棒。我去見了戴維帕卡德和鮑勃.諾伊斯，想為把事情搞得這么糟糕說聲道歉。這次失敗弄得沸沸揚(yáng)揚(yáng)的，我甚至想過逃離硅谷。但是，漸漸地，我開始有了一個想法─我仍然熱愛我過去做的一切。在蘋果公司發(fā)生的這些風(fēng)波絲毫沒有改變這一點。我雖然被拒之門外，但我仍然深愛我的事業(yè)。于是，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.

雖然當(dāng)時我并沒有意識到，但事實證明，被蘋果公司炒魷魚是我一生中碰到的最好的事情。盡管前景未卜，但從頭開始的輕松感取代了保持成功的沉重感。這使我進(jìn)入了一生中最富有創(chuàng)造力的時期之一。

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.

在此后的五年里，我開了一家名叫 NeXT 的公司和一家叫皮克斯的公司，我還愛上一位了不起的女人，后來娶了她。皮克斯公司推出了世界上第一部用電腦制作的動畫片《玩具總動員》(Toy Story)，它現(xiàn)在是全球最成功的動畫制作室。世道輪回，蘋果公司買下 NeXT 后，我又回到了蘋果公司，我們在 NeXT 公司開發(fā)的技術(shù)成了蘋果公司這次重新崛起的核心。我和勞倫娜(Laurene)也建立了美滿的家庭。

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.

我確信，如果不是被蘋果公司解雇，這一切決不可能發(fā)生。這是一劑苦藥，可我認(rèn)為苦藥利于病。有時生活會當(dāng)頭給你一棒，但不要灰心。我堅信讓我一往無前的唯一力量就是我熱愛我所做的一切。所以，一定得知道自己喜歡什么，選擇愛人時如此，選擇工作時同樣如此。工作將是生活中的一大部分，讓自己真正滿意的唯一辦法，是做自己認(rèn)為是有意義的工作;做有意義的工作的唯一辦法，是熱愛自己的工作。你們?nèi)绻€沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)自己喜歡什么，那就不斷地去尋找，不要急于做出決定。就像一切要憑著感覺去做的事情一樣，一旦找到了自己喜歡的事，感覺就會告訴你。就像任何一種美妙的東西，歷久彌新。所以說，要不斷地尋找，直到找到自己喜歡的東西。不要半途而廢。

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.

我的第三個故事與死亡有關(guān)。17 歲那年，我讀到過這樣一段話，大意是:“如果把每一天都當(dāng)作生命的最后一天，總有一天你會如愿以償。”我記住了這句話，從那時起，33 年過去了，我每天早晨都對著鏡子自問: “假如今天是生命的最后一天，我還會去做今天要做的事嗎?”如果一連許多天我的回答都是“不”，我知道自己應(yīng)該有所改變了。

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.

讓我能夠做出人生重大抉擇的最主要辦法是，記住生命隨時都有可能結(jié)束。因為幾乎所有的東西─所有對自身之外的希求、所有的尊嚴(yán)、所有對困窘和失敗的恐懼─在死亡來臨時都將不復(fù)存在，只剩下真正重要的東西。記住自己隨時都會死去，這是我所知道的防止患得患失的最好方法。你已經(jīng)一無所有了，還有什么理由不跟著自己的感覺走呢。

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.

大約一年前，我被診斷患了癌癥。那天早上七點半，我做了一次掃描檢查，結(jié)果清楚地表明我的胰腺上長了一個瘤子，可那時我連胰腺是什么還不知道呢!醫(yī)生告訴我說，幾乎可以確診這是一種無法治愈的惡性腫瘤，我最多還能活 3 到 6 個月。醫(yī)生建議我回去把一切都安排好，其實這是在暗示“準(zhǔn)備后事”。也就是說，把今后十年要跟孩子們說的事情在這幾個月內(nèi)囑咐完;也就是說，把一切都安排妥當(dāng)，盡可能不給家人留麻煩;也就是說，去跟大家訣別。

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.

那一整天里，我的腦子一直沒離開這個診斷。到了晚上，我做了一次組織切片檢查，他們把一個內(nèi)窺鏡通過喉嚨穿過我的胃進(jìn)入腸子，用針頭在胰腺的瘤子上取了一些細(xì)胞組織。當(dāng)時我用了麻醉劑，陪在一旁的妻子后來告訴我，醫(yī)生在顯微鏡里看了細(xì)胞之后叫了起來，原來這是一種少見的可以通過外科手術(shù)治愈的惡性腫瘤。我做了手術(shù)，現(xiàn)在好了。

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: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.

這是我和死神離得最近的一次，我希望也是今后幾十年里最近的一次。有了這次經(jīng)歷之后，現(xiàn)在我可以更加實在地和你們談?wù)撍劳觯皇羌兇饧埳险劚蔷褪? 誰都不愿意死。就是那些想進(jìn)天堂的人也不愿意死后再進(jìn)。然而，死亡是我們共同的歸宿，沒人能擺脫。我們注定會死，因為死亡很可能是生命最好的一項發(fā)明。它推進(jìn)生命的變遷，舊的不去，新的不來。現(xiàn)在，你們就是新的，但在不久的將來，你們也會逐漸成為舊的，也會被淘汰。對不起，話說得太過分了，不過這是千真萬確的。

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.

你們的時間都有限，所以不要按照別人的意愿去活，這是浪費時間。不要囿于成見，那是在按照別人設(shè)想的結(jié)果而活。不要讓別人觀點的聒噪聲淹沒自己的心聲。最主要的是，要有跟著自己感覺和直覺走的勇氣。無論如何，感覺和直覺早就知道你到底想成為什么樣的人，其他都是次要的。

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.

我年輕時有一本非常好的刊物，叫《全球概覽》，這是我那代人的寶書之一，創(chuàng)辦人名叫斯圖爾特布蘭德，就住在離這兒不遠(yuǎn)的門洛帕克市。他用詩一般的語言把刊物辦得生動活潑。那是 20 世紀(jì) 60 年代末，還沒有個人電腦和桌面印刷系統(tǒng)，全靠打字機(jī)、剪刀和寶麗萊照相機(jī)。它就像一種紙質(zhì)的 Google，卻比 Google 早問世了 35 年。這份刊物太完美了，查閱手段齊備、構(gòu)思不凡。

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.

斯圖爾特和他的同事們出了好幾期《全球概覽》，到最后辦不下去時，他們出了最后一期。那是 20 世紀(jì) 70 年代中期，我也就是你們現(xiàn)在的年紀(jì)。最后一期的封底上是一張清晨鄉(xiāng)間小路的照片，就是那種愛冒險的人等在那兒搭便車的那種小路。照片下面寫道: 好學(xué)若饑、謙卑若愚。那是他們停刊前的告別辭。求知若渴，大智若愚。這也是我一直想做到的。

And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

眼下正值諸位大學(xué)畢業(yè)、開始新生活之際，我同樣愿大家：好學(xué)若饑、謙卑若愚。