Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

This program is brought to you by Stanford University. Please visit us at Stanford.edu. Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and 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.

本节目由斯坦福大学为您呈现。请访问我们的官网Stanford.edu。谢谢大家！我很荣幸今天能在这里和你们一起庆祝从这所世界顶尖大学之一的毕业。说实话，我自己从未从大学毕业，所以今天是我离大学毕业最近的一次。今天，我想和你们分享我人生中的三个故事。就是这样，不是什么大不了的事，就三个故事。

The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why'd I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed 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.

第一个故事是关于如何将点连成线。我在里德学院只读了六个月就退学了，但之后以旁听生的身份又待了大约18个月才真正离开。那么，我为什么退学呢？这要从我出生前开始说起。我的生母是一位年轻的未婚研究生，她决定把我送给别人收养。她非常希望我由大学毕业生收养，所以安排好了一对律师夫妇在我出生时收养我。然而，当我出生时，他们在最后一刻决定他们真正想要的是一个女儿。

So my parents who were on a waiting list got a call in the middle of the night asking, we've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him? They said, of course. My biological mother found out later 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 go to college. This was the start of my life. And 17 years later, I did go to college, but I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford.

我的父母当时在一个等待名单上，半夜他们接到一个电话，问他们：“我们这里有个意外的小男孩。你们想要他吗？” 他们当然答应了。后来，我的生母得知我妈妈没有大学毕业，我爸爸也没有高中毕业，她拒绝签署最终的收养文件。几个月后，在我父母承诺我将来会上大学后，她才松口。这便是我人生的开始。17年后，我确实上了大学，但天真地选择了一所学费几乎和斯坦福一样昂贵的学校。

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 the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out okay. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

我所有工薪阶层父母的积蓄都被用来支付我的大学学费。六个月后，我没有看到这其中的价值。我不知道自己今后想做什么，也不知道上大学如何能帮我找到答案。而我却在花掉父母一生辛苦攒下的钱。于是我决定退学，相信一切都会好起来的。当时这个决定确实很让人害怕，但回过头来看，这是我做过的最好的决定之一。

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 far more 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 five-cent deposits to buy food with. And I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Harry Christian temple. I loved it.

我退学之后，就不用再上那些让我提不起兴趣的必修课，可以去旁听那些看起来更有趣的课程。虽然这听起来可能很理想化，但现实并不全是如此。我没有宿舍，只能睡在朋友房间的地板上。为了买食物，我去收集可乐瓶换取五分钱的押金。而且，每个星期天晚上，我都要步行七英里穿过整个城镇，到哈里·克里希纳庙去吃一顿丰盛的晚餐。我喜欢这样的生活。

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. 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-caligraphed. 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 Sarah and Sans Sarah typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.

我凭借好奇心和直觉探索的许多事情，后来证明是无价之宝。让我举个例子。当时，里德学院可能提供了全国最好的书法课程。整个校园里，每张海报、每个抽屉上的标签都是精美的手写书法。因为我退学了，不需要上常规课程，所以我决定选修一门书法课，来学习这种技艺。我了解了有衬线和无衬线字体，了解到如何在不同字母组合之间调整间距，以及是什么让优雅的版式如此出众。

It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture. And I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Mac and Tosh 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.

它是美丽的，有着历史意义，其艺术的细腻之处是科学无法捕捉的。而我对此感到着迷。这些东西在当时看来对我的生活没有任何实际应用的希望。但是十年后，当我们设计第一台Mac和Tosh电脑时，那时的记忆全都回来了。我们将这些都融入到了Mac中。它成了第一台具有优美字体的电脑。如果我当初没有去旁听那门大学课程，Mac就不会有多种字体和比例间距的字体。

And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that 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 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards.

因为 Windows 只是抄袭了 Mac，所以很可能没有个人电脑能够拥有这些功能。如果我当初没有辍学，我就不会去上那堂书法课。而个人电脑可能也就没有今天这样美妙的字体。当然，当我在大学时，无法预见这些点点滴滴是如何联系在一起的。但十年后回头看时，一切却显得非常清晰。再次强调，你无法在展望未来时连接这些点滴，只有回顾过去时才能将它们串联起来。

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. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. And that will make all the difference. My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Walson, I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20.

所以，你必须相信，那些点会在你未来的某个时候连接起来。你得信任某些东西，比如你的直觉、命运、生活、因果等等。因为相信这些点最终会连接起来，会给你勇气去追随自己的内心，即使这会把你带到一条未被踏遍的路上。而这会带来不同的结果。我的第二个故事是关于爱与失去。我很幸运，早早就发现自己热爱的事情。当时，我在20岁的时候，与沃尔森一起在我父母的车库创办了苹果公司。

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 4,000 employees. We just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I 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. And 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. 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.

我们努力工作了十年，将苹果公司从车库里的我们两人发展成了一家市值20亿美元、拥有超过4,000名员工的公司。就在一年前，我们推出了最出色的作品——Macintosh，而我刚满30岁。随后，我被炒了。怎么会被自己创立的公司解雇呢？事情是这样的：随着苹果的发展，我们聘请了一位我认为非常有才华的人来和我一起管理公司。最初的一年左右，一切进展顺利。但后来，我们对公司未来的愿景产生了分歧，最终闹僵了。在矛盾爆发时，公司董事会站在了他那边。于是，在我30岁的时候，我被公开解雇了。原本是我整个成年生活的重心一下子消失了，这对我打击很大。头几个月，我完全不知道自己该做什么。我觉得自己辜负了上一代企业家的期望，就像在交接接力棒时我让棒掉了下来。

I met with David Packard and Bob Nois, 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'd 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.

我见到了大卫·帕卡德和鲍勃·诺伊斯，并试图为自己犯下的重大错误道歉。我曾是一个众人皆知的失败者，甚至考虑过离开硅谷。然而，慢慢地我开始意识到，我依然热爱我所做的事情。苹果发生的种种变故并没有改变这一点。我虽然被拒绝了，但我仍然热爱我的事业。因此，我决定重新开始。虽然当时我没有意识到，但被苹果解雇反而成了我经历过的最好的事情。成功的沉重感被重新做新手的轻盈所取代，对一切的确定性减少了。这让我摆脱束缚，进入了我生命中最具创造力的时期之一。

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 world's 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, and I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at Next is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Lorraine 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's going to hit 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.

在接下来的五年里，我创办了一家公司叫Next，另一家公司叫皮克斯，还爱上了一位出色的女士，她后来成为了我的妻子。皮克斯制作了世界上首部电脑动画电影《玩具总动员》，现已成为全球最成功的动画工作室。出乎意料的是，苹果公司收购了Next，我因此回到了苹果，而我们在Next开发的技术成为了苹果再次崛起的核心。洛琳和我还组建了一个美满的家庭。我相当确定，如果我没有被苹果解雇，这一切都不会发生。这虽然是一剂难咽的苦药，但我想病人需要它。有时候，生活会像砖头一样击中你的头。但千万别失去信心。我确信唯一让我坚持下去的是我热爱我所做的事情。

You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for 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 and 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. Don't settle.

你必须找到你所爱的事物，无论是工作还是爱情，这一点都是一样的。工作会占据你生活中的很大部分，唯一能够让你真正满意的方法就是做你认为伟大的工作。而做伟大工作的唯一方法就是热爱你所做的事。如果你还没有找到这样的工作，继续寻找，不要将就。就像爱情一样，当你找到它时，你会知道的。就像任何伟大的关系那样，随着时间的推移，它会变得越来越好。所以继续寻找，不要将就。

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've looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, if today were the last day of my life, what 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 all be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.

我的第三个故事关于死亡。17岁时，我读到一句话，大意是：如果你把每一天都当作最后一天来过，总有一天你会发现你是对的。这句话给我留下了深刻的印象。从那时起，在过去的33年里，我每天早晨都会照镜子，问自己：如果今天是我生命中的最后一天，我想做我今天计划要做的事情吗？每当连续多天我的答案是否定的，我就知道自己需要做出一些改变。牢记我们终将会死是我遇到过的帮助我做出重大人生选择的最重要的工具。

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. About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 730 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.

几乎所有的东西，比如外界的期望、自负、对尴尬或失败的恐惧，这些在死亡面前都会消逝，只留下那些真正重要的。记住自己总有一死，这是避免掉入以为自己有所损失的陷阱的最佳方式。你已经一无所有，没有理由不跟随自己的心声。大约一年前，我被诊断出患有癌症。我在早上七点半做了一个扫描，结果明确显示我的胰腺上有一个肿瘤。我甚至不知道胰腺是什么。医生告诉我，这几乎可以肯定是一种无法治愈的癌症，我的预期寿命不会超过三到六个月。

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 and 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 live with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening, I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, threw my stomach 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 thankfully, I'm fine now.

我的医生建议我回家并处理好自己的事务，这在医生的行话中意味着要准备面对死亡。这意味着要尽量在短短几个月内，把那些原以为可以在未来十年告诉孩子们的事情都告诉他们。这也意味着要确保一切事务都安排妥当，以便让家人能够尽可能轻松地应对。这意味着要道别。我终日带着这样的诊断结果生活。那天晚上，我做了活检，医生用内窥镜从喉咙伸进胃部，再进入肠道，然后用针刺入胰腺，从肿瘤中获取了几颗细胞。我虽然处于镇静状态，但我妻子在场，她告诉我，当医生在显微镜下查看这些细胞时，他们竟然哭了，因为发现这是一种非常罕见但可以通过手术治愈的胰腺癌。我接受了手术，谢天谢地，我现在没事了。

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's 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's 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's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

这是我第一次如此接近死亡，我希望在未来的几十年中，这也是我离死亡最近的一次。经历了这次之后，我可以比死亡只是一个抽象概念时更确定地告诉你，没有人想死。即使那些想上天堂的人也不愿为了去那里而死。然而，死亡是我们共同的终点。没有人能逃避它，这是自然的安排，因为死亡很可能是生命最伟大的发明。它是生命的变革者，清除旧的，为新的生机腾出空间。现在，这个新的生机就是你。但总有一天，不远的将来，你也会逐渐变老，被新的生命取代。抱歉这样说得有些戏剧化，但这的确是事实。你的时间有限，所以不要浪费在过别人的生活上。

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. 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 Sturt Brand, not far from here in Menlo Park. And he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 60s, before personal computers and desktop publishing.

不要被教条束缚，那是活在他人思维的结果中。不要让别人的意见声浪淹没了你内心的声音。最重要的是，要有勇气追随你的内心和直觉。它们在某种程度上已经知道你真正想成为什么。其他一切都是次要的。在我年轻时，有一本令人惊叹的刊物，叫做《全球概览》，它是我们那一代人的经典之一。它由一位名叫斯图尔特·布兰德的人创办，就在离这里不远的门洛帕克。他用诗意的方式赋予了它生命。这是在60年代末，个人电脑和桌面出版尚未出现的时代。

So it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polarite cameras. It was sort of like Google and paperback form 35 years before Google came along. It was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Sturt 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.

所以，这一切都是用打字机、剪刀和Polarite相机制作的。它有点像Google和书本的结合体，比Google出现早了35年。它充满了理想主义，满载着奇妙的工具和绝妙的想法。斯图尔特和他的团队出版了几期《地球全书》。然后，当它完成自己的使命时，他们出版了最后一期。那是20世纪70年代中期，我和你现在的年龄差不多。在最后一期的封底，有一张清晨乡间小路的照片。那是一条如果你足够冒险，可能会去搭便车的路。在照片下面有一句话：求知若饥，虚心若愚。这是他们的告别信息。求知若饥，虚心若愚。

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. Thank you all very much. The preceding program is copyrighted by Stanford University. Please visit us at stanford.edu.

我一直以来都希望自己能如此。现在，在你们毕业并开始新的旅程时，我也希望你们如此。保持饥饿，保持愚蠢。非常感谢大家。以上节目版权归斯坦福大学所有。请访问我们的网站：stanford.edu。