I am 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.
今天，很榮幸和你們在一起，參加你們這世界上最好學校之一的畢業典禮。說實話，我從來沒從大學畢業過，這是我距離大學畢業最近的一刻。今天，我只說三個我的人生故事，就這樣，沒甚麼，三個故事就好。
The first story is about connecting the dots.
第一個故事，是關於串接起那些人生中的點點滴滴。
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
我在Reed College待了六個月就退學了。但是在我真正離開之前，我以旁聽生的身分在學校瞎混了又十八個月左右。那麼，我為什麼退學？
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. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We have 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 in my life.
這得從我出生前講起。我的親生母親那時是個年輕未婚的研究生，她決定讓別人收養我。她強烈覺得我應該被大學畢業的人收養，所以事情全為我安排好了，當一出生時我就會被一對律師夫婦收養。只是在我蹦出來時，他們在最後一刻決定他們實際上想要一個女孩。所以我的養父母，在等待名單上的一對夫妻，在半夜裡接到一通電話，問：「我們有一名意外出生的男嬰，你們要他嗎？」他們說：「當然」。後來，我的生母發現我媽從沒有大學畢業，而我爸則連高中也沒畢業。她拒絕簽署最後的認養文件。直到幾個月後當我的養父母保證我將來一定會上大學，她的態度才軟化。這是我生命的開始。
And seventeen 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 all 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 far more interesting.
十七年後，我的確上大學了。但是我天真地選了一所學費幾乎跟史丹佛一樣貴的大學，而所有我工人階級父母的積蓄都被花在我的大學學費上。六個月後，我看不出這之中的價值。我不知道這輩子要做什麼，也不知道大學能如何幫助我找到出路，而我正在花光我父母一輩子所存的錢。所以我決定退學，且相信一切都會沒事的。當時這決定是相當可怕的，可是回顧起來，那是我這輩子所做過最好的決定之一。退學的瞬間，我就能停修那些我沒興趣的必修課，開始旁聽那些看起來大為有趣的課程。
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 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.
這不全是浪漫故事。我沒有宿舍可住，所以我睡在友人家裡的地板上，靠著回收可樂空罐的五分錢買吃的，每個星期天晚上得走七哩的路穿過整個鎮去Hare Krishna神廟吃頓好料，我愛死它了。就這樣藉由順著我的好奇心與直覺，大部分我所跌撞經歷的，後來都成了無價之寶。
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 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.
舉個例來說：
當時里德學院提供大概是全國最好的書法教育。在遍及校園的每一張海報，每個抽屜標籤，都被美麗的親手書寫。因為我已經退學了，不必選正常的課，所以我決定去拿書法課來學如何做這個。我學了serif與sanserif字體，學到了在不同字母組合間變更間距，學到了偉大的活字印刷因何而偉大。書法是美好的、歷史的與美麗精緻的，以科學無法捕捉的方式呈現，我發現它很迷人。
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, it's 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.
我當時不曾希望過這些東西能在我生活中起任何實際作用。不過十年後，當我們在設計第一台麥金塔電腦時，我想起了它。所以我們把所有這些東西都設計進了麥金塔裡。這是第一台具有美麗印刷工藝的電腦。如果在大學時我從沒旁聽單單那門課，麥金塔就從不會有多重字體與等比例間距化字體了。又因為Windows只是抄襲麥金塔，那也就是大概沒有個人電腦會有這種功能了。如果當年我沒有退學，我就不會去旁聽那門書法課，而個人電腦大概就不會有現在它們所做的漂亮印刷工藝了。當然，當我在大學之時往前瞻望，不可能把這些點點滴滴串連起來，但在十年後的今天回顧起來，一切就顯得非常非常清楚。
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. Because believe in that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it lead you off the well-warmed path. And that will make all the difference.
我再說一次，你無法預先把點點滴滴串連起來；只有在未來回顧時，你才能串連它們。所以你得相信，眼前的點點滴滴，將來多少會連結在一起。你得信任某些東西，膽量也好，命運也好，生命也好，或者因果報應，甚麼都好。甚至當你在崎嶇坎坷的路上，因為相信點點滴滴終究會一路串聯起來，將會給予你追夢的自信。而那將會改變一切。
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 twenty. We worked hard, and in ten years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a two-billion-dollar company with over four thousand employees. We had just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I had just turned thirty. 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 thirty 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，是關於愛與失去。
我很幸運。年輕時我就發現自己所愛做的事。二十歲時，我跟Steve Wozniak在我爸媽的車庫裡創立了蘋果電腦。我們拼命工作，十年間蘋果電腦從一間車庫裡只有我們兩個成長成為一家市值二十億美金，有著超過四千員工的公司。前一年我們推出了我們最棒的創作－麥金塔電腦，那時我才剛三十歲，然後我被解僱了。我怎麼會被自己創辦的公司給解僱了？嗯，當蘋果電腦成長時，我請了一個我以為很有才幹的傢伙來和我一同經營公司，而第一年左右事情也進行得很順利。可是接下來我們對未來的願景開始意見分歧，最後我們分道揚鑣了。當我們決裂時，董事會站在他那邊。就這樣在30歲的時候，我退出了。在眾目睽睽之下我退出了。我整個成年人生活重心都灰飛煙滅了，這是場空前浩劫阿。
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.
有幾個月，我真不知道要做些什麼。我覺得我令企業家前輩們失望－當接力棒正在被轉交給我時，我把它給弄丟了。我見了David Packard (HP創辦人)跟Bob Noyce (Intel創辦人)，抱歉我把事情給搞砸了。我成了公眾眼中的失敗示範，我甚至想要逃離矽谷。但我慢慢的開始明白：我還是喜愛我所做過的事情。在蘋果電腦的那些巨變絲毫沒有改變我。雖然我被拒絕了，可是我還是愛那些事情，所以我決定重新來過。
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.
當時我並不明白，但結果原來是，被蘋果電腦開除，是曾經發生在我身上最好的事情。成功的沉重被重新來過的輕鬆所取代，每件事情都不那麼確定，讓我自由進入這輩子最有創意的時代。
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, 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，我開了一家叫做 NeXT的公司，又開一家叫做Pixar的公司，也跟後來變成我老婆的一個很棒的女人談起了戀愛。Pixar接著製作了世界上第一部全電腦動畫影片，玩具總動員，現在是世界上最成功的動畫製作公司。值得注意的轉變發生，蘋果電腦買下了NeXT，我回到了蘋果，我們在NeXT發展的技術成了蘋果電腦目前復興的核心部份。Laurene和我也有了個美妙的家庭。
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. 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.
我很確定，如果當年蘋果電腦沒開除我，就不會發生這些事情。這是帖很苦的藥，可是我想病人需要它。有時人生會有磚頭砸你的頭。別失去信心。我相信這些年來讓我繼續走下去唯一的事情，是愛我所做。你得找出你所愛，工作上是如此，人生伴侶也是如此。你的工作將佔掉你人生的一大部分，唯一真正獲得滿足的方法就是去做你相信是偉大的工作，而唯一做偉大工作的方法是去愛你所做的事。如果你還沒找到這些事，繼續找。別停下來。當盡你全心全力，你找到的時候你會知道的。而且，像是任何偉大的感情，這只會隨著時間愈來愈好。所以，繼續找，別停頓。
My third story is about death.
When I was seventeen, 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 thirty-three 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，是關於死亡。
當我十七歲時，我讀到一則名言，好像是：「若你把每一天都當成生命中的最後一天來活，總有一天你是對的。」這對我影響深遠，之後，在過去三十三年裡，我每天早上都會照鏡子，自問：「如果今天是此生最後一日，我會做我今天將要做的事情嗎？」而當連續太多天答案都是「不」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.
記著自己快死了，是我在人生中所碰到幫助我做重大決定的最重要工具。因為幾乎每件事，所有外界期望、所有的自尊、所有面對困窘或失敗的恐懼，這些事在面對死亡時都消失了，只留下那真正重要的東西。記著自己快死了，是我所知最好的方法來避開認為你會有所失的陷阱。你已經一無所有，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 ten 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，我被診斷出癌症。我在早上七點半作斷層掃描，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，那幾乎可以確定是一種不治之癌症，我預計活不過三到六個月。醫生建議我回家處理後事，這是醫生對臨終病人的慣例。那意味著你得試著在僅僅幾個月內把你將來十年裡你認為你必須告訴小孩的每件事講完。那意味著你得確定每件事情交代清楚，家人才會盡可能地輕鬆。那意味著你得說再見了。
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.
我整天想著那個診斷結果，那天晚上做了一次切片，他們將一個內視鏡伸進喉，穿過胃進到腸子，將探針刺進我胰臟，從腫瘤上取了一些細胞出來。我打了鎮靜劑而不醒人事，但是我老婆她當時在那。後來她跟我說，當醫生們在顯微鏡下看過那些細胞後，他們開始哭了，因為那原來是一種非常少見的胰臟癌，那是可以用手術治好的。我接受了手術，康復了。
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:
這是我最接近死亡的時候，我希望那是未來幾十年內最接近的一次。歷經此事後，現在我可以比先前對我來說死亡是有用的但是僅止於純粹的概念時，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.
沒有人想死。即使那些想上天堂的人，也不想因為上天堂而死。然而死亡是我們共同的終點，沒有人逃得過。這是註定的，因為死亡很可能就是生命的最棒發明，是生命交替的媒介，送走老人們，給新生代開出道路。現在新生代是你們，但是不久的將來，你們也會逐漸變老，被送出世代的舞台。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 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，所以不要浪費時間為別人而活。不要被教條所侷限，就是活在別人思考結果裡。不要讓別人意見的噪音淹沒了你內在的心聲。最重要的，是要有勇氣追隨自己內心與直覺，你的內心與直覺多少已經知道你真正想要成為什麼樣的人。任何其他事物都是次要的。
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, thirty-five years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
在我年輕時，有本神奇的雜誌叫做《The Whole Earth Catalog》，這是我們這一代人的經典讀物。那是由一位住在離這不遠的Menlo Park，名為Stewart Brand的傢伙所創作，他以詩心賦予雜誌生命。那是1960年代末期，在個人電腦和桌上型電腦出版之前，故所有內容都是打字機、剪刀跟拍立得相機做出來的。雜誌有點像書面版的Google，在Google出現之前三十五年就有了：這本雜誌很理想主義，充滿很棒的工具與偉大的見解。
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的《Whole Earth Catalog》，然後很自然的，他們出了最後的停刊號。當時是1970年代中期，我正是你們現在這個年齡的時候。在最後一期的封底有張清晨鄉間小路的照片，那種你發現你自己搭便車旅行時會經過的鄉間小路，若你是如此喜歡冒險的話。在照片下有行字：求知若飢，虛心若愚。那是他們結束時的告別訊息。求知若飢，虛心若愚，我總是以此自許。現在，當你們畢業，展開新生活，我也以此祝福你們。
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
求知若飢，虛心若愚。(註一)
Thank you all very much.
非常謝謝大家。
註一：Stay hungry. Stay foolish. 原本就是一種意境的傳達，各人領悟有所不同。從當年的《The Whole Earth Catalog》封底上所引用的這句話，並非出自賈伯斯本人，原著所想要表達的意境也已不可考。這句話的解讀，各家見解分歧，雖說根據Mr. Jobs的個性判斷，可能不是想要藉此表達foolish as humble，但若真是要按照Jobs的思維模式，推測其解讀這句之意為：「為求創新進步而保持飢渴，為求專注堅持而保持愚昧。」
- 「說實話」- Truth Be Told
Truth be told, I never graduated from college.
說實話，我從來沒從大學畢業過。 - 「退學、退出」- Drop Out Of
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months
我在Reed College待了六個月就退學了。 - 「結果成為」- Turn Out To Be
And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.
就這樣藉由順著我的好奇心與直覺，大部分我所跌撞經歷的，後來都成了無價之寶。
