Honestly speaking, JAB WE MET is one of the awesome movies I have watched in recent times. The story was spot on, the location was spot on , everything about the movie was just too good.
I watched in two parts. The first part was when it was shown on a popular television channel. I was watching the movie, when my cousin turned up, to invite my family to his house warming ceremony. I had already fallen in love with the movie, but this time could not help. I had to switch off the Television, but I dont regret it.
Then the coming week, I went to Dharwad to my cousin's marriage. Now too I could not watch the second part, the thought of which was really haunting me. Finally one fine weekend, I managed to watch the second part of the movie, and mark my words, it was worth the wait.
I ve learnt some lessons from the movie. Last time, I had put up a post about lessons learnt from Dil Chahta Hai. But it was an extract instead. But this time, its my learning curve. So here it goes. (Not many though)
1. Do things which make you happy and the things which you love the most.
Recollect, Aditya (Shahid) was fond of music, but finding no time due to his schedule. But after he met Geet(Kareena) , he re-realised his interest in music. btw what an awesome song, sung by....... I assume its by the Lead Singer of Silk Route. Correct me if I am wrong.
2. Balance personal as well as professional life.
I think its very mandatory to strike a chord between the two. Else you will forget to enjoy life while you chase your dreams and aspirations or you will forget your professional aspirations.
Recollect how Shahid performs @ his peak, after he returns from Manali.
3. To speak your heart out, listen to others' worries , speak about your worries.
Recollect, how Shahid feels when he flushes out the pic of his ex-girlfriend who married someone else. Well its really important to speak out to someone, tell your concerns, and at the same time listen to others worries as well.
4. To take a break, from work and travel.
After I watched the movie, I just felt the importance of taking a break from work. You can travel or do something creative.
5. To completely own your decisions.
This is one of the most awesome things which I came across watching the movie.
Recollect what Kareena tells when they are planning to make an elope from her house. To take decisions that your heart tells, and to own them completely and later, not to blame anyone for the decision.
Well, I want to re-iterate about #1.
1. Do things which make you happy and the things which you love the most.
The thing which I love to do the most, is to crack Jokes. The jokes which I utter is completely spontaneous and has nothing to do with any sorts of preparation. Above all, I do it most, when I meet cousins. But the saddest part is my brother absolutely hates it. He once said " Do you even remember that you are a Software Engineer, and work _ _ _ _ _ ". Well dont know what to make out of it. One thing's for sure, There's no stopping me when it comes to jokes, esp POOR JOKES !!!
Cheers, bye for now !!!
Switching ends !!!
Funny post, no meaning though, but after all its MY BLOG baby !!!!.
Well for the first 15 years of my life, I resided at Malleshwaram. Then on I moved to Bangalore South.
My cousin resided for many years at Jayanagar 9th Block . Now he has moved to Nelamangala since .
This time around, when I visited my cousin's place (on the occasion of house warming ceremony of his new house), I decided to have a casual chat about how he travels to his work place and how I travel to my workplace. The thing which came to light was quite surprising.
He started telling me about my house which I resided in Malleshwaram and I started telling about the house in which he resided in Jayanagar.
Guess what, incidentally he travels to his workplace everyday passing by my house @ Malleshwaram and I travel to my workplace everyday, passing his house @ Jayanagar 9th block.
Aint that supercoooool !!!!!
Well for the first 15 years of my life, I resided at Malleshwaram. Then on I moved to Bangalore South.
My cousin resided for many years at Jayanagar 9th Block . Now he has moved to Nelamangala since .
This time around, when I visited my cousin's place (on the occasion of house warming ceremony of his new house), I decided to have a casual chat about how he travels to his work place and how I travel to my workplace. The thing which came to light was quite surprising.
He started telling me about my house which I resided in Malleshwaram and I started telling about the house in which he resided in Jayanagar.
Guess what, incidentally he travels to his workplace everyday passing by my house @ Malleshwaram and I travel to my workplace everyday, passing his house @ Jayanagar 9th block.
Aint that supercoooool !!!!!
Goo Goo Dolls - Here is Gone
Phenomenal song by the 3 piece outfit called GOO GOO Dolls, from the album " Gutter Flower" .
John Reznick Rocks!!!!
A DECADE LONG WAIT !!! What it is???
Well, wondering what it is ?? Yes its almost a decade, since I last visited the Vijaya Vittala temple @ Tumkur Road, close to Nelamangala. It was in 1997, I had been there. I just loved the place. The Gitopadesham, Vishnu Avataara, everything was just spot on. Mythology at its very best.
Since then I have traveled along Tumkur Road, a lot many times, but never found the opportunity to visit the temple. Now in 2008, I revisited the temple, just to find out, nothings' changed in the past 10 years.
I had been to my cousin's place @ Nelamangala. Incidentally it was the house warming ceremony of his new house. On my way back home, I headed to the Vijaya Vittala temple. The first thing I uttered in front of the Lord was " Thanks god for keeping me alive and kicking for 10 years. " . It just came automatically. So finally the decade long wait is over. I wish I visit the temple more frequently.
Since then I have traveled along Tumkur Road, a lot many times, but never found the opportunity to visit the temple. Now in 2008, I revisited the temple, just to find out, nothings' changed in the past 10 years.
I had been to my cousin's place @ Nelamangala. Incidentally it was the house warming ceremony of his new house. On my way back home, I headed to the Vijaya Vittala temple. The first thing I uttered in front of the Lord was " Thanks god for keeping me alive and kicking for 10 years. " . It just came automatically. So finally the decade long wait is over. I wish I visit the temple more frequently.
Sixpence None The Richer -> Don't dream it's over
A song, which I hope, will inspire me to get back to work, with full JOSH!! By the way I had a rocking time @ Dharwad !!!!
Inspired to take Photos !!!!!
Through this post, I want to tell the name of the person who, inspired me the most to buy a digital cam and take photos. The truth is out, its none other than " Otto Frank ". Father of Anne Frank. (Recollect -> from the Diary of Anne Frank)
After reading the book " The Diary of a Young Girl " by Anne Frank, I became more and more inquisitive, to know about the Frank family. I started searching on the internet about who betrayed the Frank family, how were the members of the Annexe were arrested, where they were sent to after arrest.
It is through here that, I came to know that, Otto Frank, Anne's father, was very much interested in photography. I learnt that in the 1940's itself he had a good quality camera and took lots of snaps, which told the world lots of stories. Hence I thought, lemme give it a try and to be honest, it just worked wonders. Not only did I take 130+ pics, but it made the event even more memorable, an event close to my heart.
Thanks Otto Frank !!!!!
[The event I am speaking here is my cousin's marriage at Dharwad]
After reading the book " The Diary of a Young Girl " by Anne Frank, I became more and more inquisitive, to know about the Frank family. I started searching on the internet about who betrayed the Frank family, how were the members of the Annexe were arrested, where they were sent to after arrest.
It is through here that, I came to know that, Otto Frank, Anne's father, was very much interested in photography. I learnt that in the 1940's itself he had a good quality camera and took lots of snaps, which told the world lots of stories. Hence I thought, lemme give it a try and to be honest, it just worked wonders. Not only did I take 130+ pics, but it made the event even more memorable, an event close to my heart.
Thanks Otto Frank !!!!!
[The event I am speaking here is my cousin's marriage at Dharwad]
I love the 80's
Hey there!!! I was back to Bangalore on Sunday, 3 Feb 2008 from Dharwad. Since I was jobless on a weekend, I decided to watch VH1.
VH1 has a programme every weekend called " Big Weekend". Every week there are different themes and different songs are telecasted based on the theme. The theme for this weekend was " I love the 80's ". I just loved it. Loads of good songs.
Though lots of awesome songs were being played, I thought I was seriously missing something. I was wondering, 1980's is absolutely incomplete without mentioning the name of " MARK KNOPFLER " and the " DIRE STRAITS ". Guess what happened the next moment???
The song queued up was "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler. Boy O Boy. What an awesome song. What an awesome band. I totally relished this weekend's theme.
Waiting for many more Retro Picks!!!!
VH1 has a programme every weekend called " Big Weekend". Every week there are different themes and different songs are telecasted based on the theme. The theme for this weekend was " I love the 80's ". I just loved it. Loads of good songs.
Though lots of awesome songs were being played, I thought I was seriously missing something. I was wondering, 1980's is absolutely incomplete without mentioning the name of " MARK KNOPFLER " and the " DIRE STRAITS ". Guess what happened the next moment???
The song queued up was "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler. Boy O Boy. What an awesome song. What an awesome band. I totally relished this weekend's theme.
Waiting for many more Retro Picks!!!!
I am Back !!!!
Hey there !!! I am back doing what I love doing the most, blog, blog and blog.
I am back after attending, my cousin brother's marriage @ Dharwad. I have had loads of great moments over there. Lots of new friends, lots of relatives and above all an awesome place to be ie Dharwad.
I have taken close to 130 pics from my new digicam. All in all, a treasured moment.
There s some sad twist to the tale too -> The day I left Bangalore to Dharwad, a robber had entered our house compound. Thanks to the people who do a night beat, the robber was caught and handed over to the police. This was a very close call, but somehow thanks to God, no major robbery has happened.
I have visited lots of places, met lots of people above all cracked lots and lots of jokes and had a great time. I wish I could put this robbery incident to the side and cherish the celebration alone.
God, please ensure our house is safe from robbers, is all what I can pray for.
I will post more on my places of visit.
Cheers !!!!
I am back after attending, my cousin brother's marriage @ Dharwad. I have had loads of great moments over there. Lots of new friends, lots of relatives and above all an awesome place to be ie Dharwad.
I have taken close to 130 pics from my new digicam. All in all, a treasured moment.
There s some sad twist to the tale too -> The day I left Bangalore to Dharwad, a robber had entered our house compound. Thanks to the people who do a night beat, the robber was caught and handed over to the police. This was a very close call, but somehow thanks to God, no major robbery has happened.
I have visited lots of places, met lots of people above all cracked lots and lots of jokes and had a great time. I wish I could put this robbery incident to the side and cherish the celebration alone.
God, please ensure our house is safe from robbers, is all what I can pray for.
I will post more on my places of visit.
Cheers !!!!
He- Man And The Masters of the Universe ;;; My source of inspiration
He-Man, is the cartoon which has been till date the most influential cartoon for me. Not only did I enjoy watching this cartoon, but also me and my friends were crazy about He-Man toys. We played with it a lot. One of my friend had toys of all the characters appearing in He-Man. This was before GI-Joe.
Well, this cartoon definitely sparked a fire in me, a fire which burns till date and will keep on burning. It inspired me to workout. My love for workouts came from no where else but from He-Man.
I frankly accept, I do not have a muscular sculpted body, I do have a few extra pounds, which is quite visible on my blog photo. But I never get bored of workouts, nor do I get upset, that I do not have a sculpted body even though I had worked out for quite some time. I have got all my inspiration from this cartoon.
Thought I watched this cartoon in 1987-88, as a 4 year old, it was almost 2002, till I first went to the gym. But I don't regret it. Nor my interest had lessened. I just pray to god to give me more quality time to work out.
Regarding a sculpted body, well, its just a matter of time.
I also attribute my interest in workouts to Lord Hanuman, whom I am devotee of. Thank you God.
Well, this cartoon definitely sparked a fire in me, a fire which burns till date and will keep on burning. It inspired me to workout. My love for workouts came from no where else but from He-Man.
I frankly accept, I do not have a muscular sculpted body, I do have a few extra pounds, which is quite visible on my blog photo. But I never get bored of workouts, nor do I get upset, that I do not have a sculpted body even though I had worked out for quite some time. I have got all my inspiration from this cartoon.
Thought I watched this cartoon in 1987-88, as a 4 year old, it was almost 2002, till I first went to the gym. But I don't regret it. Nor my interest had lessened. I just pray to god to give me more quality time to work out.
Regarding a sculpted body, well, its just a matter of time.
I also attribute my interest in workouts to Lord Hanuman, whom I am devotee of. Thank you God.
By the power of GraySkull - "I have the Power "
He-Man, till date the most influential cartoon for me, I enjoyed this cartoon very much, as a kid when it came out in the late 1980's. I owe my fondness to the GYM to none other than Prince Adam aka He-Man.
The Police - Every Little Thing She Does is Magic
One of my all time favorite songs. I want to dedicate this song to a very special friend of mine, Every little thing she does is really magic, wondering who??? keep on guessing !!!!
What Am I Reading ?? Part II
I am almost done reading the book " The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, and to be honest, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a great time, knowing more about the Frank family.
When I put up a post on the Diary of a Young Girl, titled Part I , somebody told me " Thanks for the KT ". Sounds really absurd, what should I make out of this?? I don't know, frankly speaking, who cares ???.
[If anyone has any clue on what it is, please post a comment]
Since I was busy with some personal work, I could not read the book in a single stretch. It took me almost 3 weeks to finish it. But at the end I can only say, " I am moved ". Its so beautiful, I have no words to describe it. Be it the Frank family or the helpers or the cats or the writing, they are all legendary. It all happened half a century ago, but when you read the book, it does not give you that impression.
What have I learnt ???
-> To be POSITIVE.
The writing of Anne Frank is filled with so much of optimism. Being in hiding, for over two years , with little food, lots of worries [lots of planes flying above you and lots of bombarding, arrests , gas chambers, deadly marches], you can be totally unsure of what is coming up next.
The writing is so wonderful that, not on many occasions, has Anne Frank deviated from being positive.
I have read so many books which have taught me to be positive, but this one is from someone whose been there, done it all and its unbeatable. Hats off.
-> To Read more and more !!!
Even when Anne Frank was hiding , she was reading and reading. It was something which I loved the most. Not to be out of touch when it comes to books. I think it has just inspired me to go an extra mile. Be it technical or non technical, I am prepared to read and read !!!!
I hope I can come up with a Part III on this. [Some pictures, some more on my learning curve]
Once again, BIG THANKS GOING OUT TO STRAND. Thank you Strand Book Stall for giving me such a wonderful book. Also a big thanks going out to my big brother, for helping me be a more intellectual person. (Infact he provides me all the books !!! )
When I put up a post on the Diary of a Young Girl, titled Part I , somebody told me " Thanks for the KT ". Sounds really absurd, what should I make out of this?? I don't know, frankly speaking, who cares ???.
[If anyone has any clue on what it is, please post a comment]
Since I was busy with some personal work, I could not read the book in a single stretch. It took me almost 3 weeks to finish it. But at the end I can only say, " I am moved ". Its so beautiful, I have no words to describe it. Be it the Frank family or the helpers or the cats or the writing, they are all legendary. It all happened half a century ago, but when you read the book, it does not give you that impression.
What have I learnt ???
-> To be POSITIVE.
The writing of Anne Frank is filled with so much of optimism. Being in hiding, for over two years , with little food, lots of worries [lots of planes flying above you and lots of bombarding, arrests , gas chambers, deadly marches], you can be totally unsure of what is coming up next.
The writing is so wonderful that, not on many occasions, has Anne Frank deviated from being positive.
I have read so many books which have taught me to be positive, but this one is from someone whose been there, done it all and its unbeatable. Hats off.
-> To Read more and more !!!
Even when Anne Frank was hiding , she was reading and reading. It was something which I loved the most. Not to be out of touch when it comes to books. I think it has just inspired me to go an extra mile. Be it technical or non technical, I am prepared to read and read !!!!
I hope I can come up with a Part III on this. [Some pictures, some more on my learning curve]
Once again, BIG THANKS GOING OUT TO STRAND. Thank you Strand Book Stall for giving me such a wonderful book. Also a big thanks going out to my big brother, for helping me be a more intellectual person. (Infact he provides me all the books !!! )
An Ode to my Teachers @ SJBIT.
Yesterday I had bunked office and was at home all day. At 7pm in the evening, I was listening to the music and all of a sudden I had one thought.
If I had the power to reverse or undo one thing, what would it be?
I started thinking and thinking. But the only thing that came to my mind was my dismal performance in CET. So I wished if I could undo that, and obtain a better CET ranking, and join a college other than SJBIT.
I finally had to settle with only a better performance in CET would be something which could be undone. But regarding a college other than SJBIT, a definite NO. I am firm on this one. I have had a glorious 4 years stay at SJBIT. I have made the most out of it, infact had a great time as a student over there. Hence I came up with a post thanking all my teachers @ SJBIT.
If it was not SJBIT, I would never have been the same person. I would never have met so many wonderful people @ college and above all, I could have been in a different organization altogether, probably doing something which I would not have loved.
At this moment I can say is I am totally in love with my job and over a period of 2 years 4 months, I have met the most wonderful and disciplined professionals in the IT Industry and it was possible all because of SJBIT.
I would like to thank Mr.RaviKumar , Mr.HanumanthR and Mr.Sampath, gurus of mine. Not only they taught the engineering subjects, but also helped me turn the focus light inwards.
Thank you SJBIT !!!!!
If I had the power to reverse or undo one thing, what would it be?
I started thinking and thinking. But the only thing that came to my mind was my dismal performance in CET. So I wished if I could undo that, and obtain a better CET ranking, and join a college other than SJBIT.
I finally had to settle with only a better performance in CET would be something which could be undone. But regarding a college other than SJBIT, a definite NO. I am firm on this one. I have had a glorious 4 years stay at SJBIT. I have made the most out of it, infact had a great time as a student over there. Hence I came up with a post thanking all my teachers @ SJBIT.
If it was not SJBIT, I would never have been the same person. I would never have met so many wonderful people @ college and above all, I could have been in a different organization altogether, probably doing something which I would not have loved.
At this moment I can say is I am totally in love with my job and over a period of 2 years 4 months, I have met the most wonderful and disciplined professionals in the IT Industry and it was possible all because of SJBIT.
I would like to thank Mr.RaviKumar , Mr.HanumanthR and Mr.Sampath, gurus of mine. Not only they taught the engineering subjects, but also helped me turn the focus light inwards.
Thank you SJBIT !!!!!
Def Leppard - Long Long Way to Go - Music Video
Awesome Song !!! by Def Leppard. One of my all time favorites. !!
Steve Jobs - Speech at Stanford Graduation Ceremony
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
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.
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?
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
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.
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?
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Simply Red - You make me feel brand new
A song which I grew up listening to. A tremendous song by Simply Red. Mick Hucknall just rocks !!!
Probably a 1980's song. I love RETRO , ain't I ???
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