【正文】 我的醫(yī)生叫我回家，然后準(zhǔn)備好一切后事，那是醫(yī)生對(duì)臨終病人的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)程序。說實(shí)話當(dāng)時(shí)我都不知道胰腺是什么東西。大約在一年以前，我被診斷出了癌癥。你有時(shí)候會(huì)想你將會(huì)失去某些東西，“記住你終將死去”是我所知道的避免這些思維陷阱的最好辦法。它幫我指明了生命的方向。從那個(gè)時(shí)候開始，在過去的33年里，我每天早晨都會(huì)對(duì)著鏡子問自己：“如果今天是你生命中的最后一天，你會(huì)不會(huì)完成你今天想做的事情呢？”如果答案連續(xù)很多天都是“不”的話，我知道自己需要改變一些事情了。在我17歲的時(shí)候，我讀過這樣一句話：“如果你把每一天都當(dāng)作生命中最后一天去生活的話，那么有一天你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)你是正確的。這就像任何深厚的關(guān)系，隨著歲月的流逝只會(huì)越來越緊密。如果你現(xiàn)在還沒有找到，那么繼續(xù)找，不要停下來。你的工作將會(huì)占據(jù)生活中很大的一部分。你需要去找到你所愛的東西。這時(shí)不要失去信仰。良藥確實(shí)苦口，但是我想病人需要這個(gè)藥。而且，我還和勞倫斯一起建立了一個(gè)幸福美滿的家庭。后來，蘋果收購了NeXT，之后我就又回到了蘋果公司。在接下來的五年里，我創(chuàng)立了一個(gè)新的公司名字叫NeXT，同時(shí)還創(chuàng)立了一個(gè)叫皮克斯的公司,?然后和一個(gè)后來成為我妻子的美麗女人相識(shí)。因?yàn)?，作為一個(gè)成功者的負(fù)重感被作為一個(gè)創(chuàng)業(yè)者的輕松感所代替，對(duì)任何事情都不再那么特別看重了。所以我決定東山再起，從頭再來。在蘋果公司發(fā)生的那些不愉快的事情絲毫沒有改變我的想法，一點(diǎn)也沒有改變。諾伊斯見面，并想向他們道歉，因?yàn)槲野咽虑榕煤茉愀?。我和?chuàng)辦惠普的大衛(wèi)在被開除的最初幾個(gè)月里，我真是不知道自己該做些什么。在而立之年，這絕對(duì)是毀滅性的打擊。所以在我30歲的時(shí)候，我被炒了魷魚。在開始的幾年里，蘋果公司運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)得非常好，但是后來我們在公司未來的發(fā)展上發(fā)生了分歧，最終我們吵了起來。然后，我被炒魷魚了。在這家公司成立的第9年里，我們發(fā)布了最棒的產(chǎn)品，那就是麥金塔。沃茲和我在我們20多歲的時(shí)候就在我父母的車庫里開創(chuàng)了蘋果公司。我第二個(gè)要講的故事是關(guān)于愛和失去。所以你一定要相信這些片斷會(huì)在你未來某一天里全部串聯(lián)起來。當(dāng)然在上大學(xué)的時(shí)候，我還不能前瞻性地把那些點(diǎn)點(diǎn)滴滴聯(lián)系起來，但是在十年之后，在回顧這一切的時(shí)候，真的是豁然開朗了。如果我當(dāng)時(shí)沒有退學(xué)的話，就沒有機(jī)會(huì)去參加那個(gè)我感興趣的美術(shù)字課程，麥金塔也就不會(huì)有那么多豐富的美術(shù)字體和那些美妙的字體間距。我把當(dāng)時(shí)我學(xué)到的那些東西全部都用到了麥金塔的設(shè)計(jì)上。那種美妙的藝術(shù)感和歷史感，是科學(xué)永遠(yuǎn)都不可能做到的，我發(fā)現(xiàn)那真的是很讓人著迷。因?yàn)槲彝藢W(xué)了，所以我不必去上那些正規(guī)的課程，可以去學(xué)學(xué)那些美術(shù)字課程，學(xué)習(xí)怎樣才能寫出漂亮的美術(shù)字。我在這里給你們舉個(gè)例子吧：那時(shí)候里德學(xué)院的美術(shù)字課程可能是全美最好的美術(shù)字課。在周日的晚上，我要穿過這個(gè)城市到Hare Krishna神廟（位于紐約布魯克林下城—編者注），走上7英里的路只是為了吃頓好點(diǎn)的飯，這可是一個(gè)星期里最好的一頓飯，我喜歡那里的飯菜。可是事情并不如想象的那么浪漫。就在我做出退學(xué)決定的那一刻，我終于可以不再去讀那些令我厭煩的課程了。因此我決定退學(xué)，并相信這是一個(gè)明智的決定。我當(dāng)時(shí)并不知道我真正想要的到底是什么，我也不知道這所大學(xué)怎么能幫我找到我想要的答案。我的父母都是工薪階層，他們幾乎把他們一生所有的積蓄都花在了我的學(xué)費(fèi)上。在17歲那年，我真的去上了大學(xué)。于是她拒絕在這份收養(yǎng)合同上簽字。唯獨(dú)有一件事沒有準(zhǔn)備好：在我出生的那一刻，那對(duì)律師夫婦在最后一分鐘才決定，他們其實(shí)想要一個(gè)女孩。她決定把我送給別人收養(yǎng)，她非常想讓一個(gè)大學(xué)畢業(yè)生收養(yǎng)我。那么我為什么要退學(xué)呢？這個(gè)故事要從我出生的時(shí)候講起。第一個(gè)故事是關(guān)于怎樣把生活中的點(diǎn)點(diǎn)滴滴都串聯(lián)起來。今天我將向你們講述我生活中三個(gè)故事。我從來沒有從大學(xué)畢業(yè)。 opinions drown out your own inner most important, have the courage to follow your heart and somehow already know what you truly want to else is I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic was in the late 196039。s 39。s 39。s change clears out the old to make way for the now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually bee the old and be cleared to be so dramatic, but it is quite time is limited, so don39。ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more 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 people who want to go to heaven don39。d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your means to say your lived with that diagnosis all 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 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 had the surgery and I39。t even know what a pancreas 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 doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor39。you can only connect them looking you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my second story is about love and was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion pany with over 4000 had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned then I got can you get fired from a pany you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the pany with me, and for the first year or so things went then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling we did, our Board of Directors sided with at 30 I was very publicly had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was really didn39。t capture, and I found it of this had even a hope of any practical application in my ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh puter, it all came back to we designed it all into the was the first puter with beautiful I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal puter would have I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal puters might not have the wonderful typography that they course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years , you can39。 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 loved much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later me give you one example:Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand I had dropped out and didn39。t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends39。t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked wasn39。 savings were being spent on my college six months, I couldn39。s big three first story is about connecting the dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a dropin for another 18 months or so before I really why did I drop out?It started before I was biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and