这所世界上最好的一座大学的毕业典礼 from one of the finest universities in the world

说实话我还没从大学毕业 Truth be told I never graduated from college

今天是我离大学毕业最近的一天了 And this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation

今天我想向你们讲述我生活中的三个故事 Today I want to tell you three stories from my life

不谈大道理 三个故事就好 That's it No big deal just three stories

第一个故事是关于人生中的点点滴滴怎么串连在一起 The first story is about connecting the dots

我在里德学院读了六个月之后就退学了 I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months

但之后仍作为旁听生 But then stayed around as a drop-in

混了十八个月后才最终离开 For another 18 months or so before I really quit

我为什么要退学呢 So why did I drop out

故事从我出生的时候讲 It started before I was born

我的亲生母亲是一个年轻的 My biological mother was a young

没有结婚的大学毕业生 Unwed college graduate student

她决定让别人收养我 And she decided to put me up for adoption

她十分想让我被大学毕业生收养 She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates

在我出生时她已经做好一切准备 So everything was all set for me

能使得我被一个律师家庭所收养 To be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife

但是在最后一刻 Except that when I popped out

律师夫妇突然决定想要一个女孩 They decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl

所以在候选名单上我的养父母 So my parents who were on a waiting list

突然在半夜接到了一个电话 Got a call in the middle of the night

我们这儿有一个不请自来的男婴 Asking we got an unexpected baby boy

你们想要他吗 Do you want him

他们回答 当然 They said Of course

但是我亲生母亲随后发现 My biological mother found out later

我的养母从来没有上过大学 That my mother had never graduated from college

我的养父甚至从没有读过高中 And my father had never graduated from high school

她拒绝签这个收养合同 She refused to sign the final adoption papers

但在几个月以后 她才软化同意 She only relented a few months later

当我的父母答应一定要让我上大学 When my parents promised that I would go to college

我的人生从这里起航 This was a start in my life

在十七岁那年 我真的上了大学 And 17 years later I did go to college

但是我很愚蠢地选择了一个 But I naively chose a college

几乎和你们斯坦福一样贵的学校 That was almost as expensive as Stanford

我的父母还都是蓝领阶层 And all of my working-class parents' savings

他们倾其所有资助我的学业 Were being spent on my college tuition

在六个月后 我已经看不到其中的价值所在 After six months I couldn't see the value in it

我不知道我真正想要做什么 I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life

我也不知道大学能怎样帮助我找到答案 And no idea how college was going to help me figure it out

在我上学的这段时间 And here I was spending all of the money

我几乎花光了父母全部的积蓄 My parents had saved their entire life

所以我决定退学 So I decided to drop out

我相信每件事情总会有它的解决办法 And trust that it would all work out OK

不能否认 我当时确实非常害怕 It was pretty scary at the time

但是回头想想 But looking back

那的确是我这一生中最棒的决定 It was one of the best decisions I ever made

在我做出退学决定的那一刻 The minute I dropped out

我向那些毫无兴趣的课程说再见 I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me

然后我可以开始去修 And begin dropping in on the ones

那些看起来有点意思的课程 That looked further more interesting

这一点都不浪漫 我居无定所 It wasn't all romantic I didn't have a dorm room

所以我只能睡在朋友家的地板上 So I slept on the floor in friends' rooms

我去捡可以换五美分的可乐罐 I returned coke bottles for the 5¢

仅仅为了填饱肚子 Deposits to buy food with

星期天的晚上 我走七英里的路程 And I would walk the 7 miles

穿过这个城市到克利须那神庙 Across town every Sunday night

只为能吃顿像样的饭菜 To get one good meal a week

这个星期里惟一一顿像样的饭菜 At the Hare Krishna temple

我乐此不疲 I loved it

我跟随好奇心和直觉所做的事情 And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition

此后被证明是无价之宝 Turned out to be priceless later on

让我给你们举一个例子吧 Let me give you one example

里德学院在那时提供 Reed College at that time offered

也许是全美最好的书法课 Perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country

在这个大学里面的每个海报 Throughout the campus every poster

每个抽屉的标签上面 Every label on every drawer

全都是漂亮的美术字 Was beautifully hand calligrapher

因为我退学了不必去上正规的课程 Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes

所以我决定去参加这个课程 I decided to take a calligraphy class

去学学怎样写出漂亮的美术字 To learn how to do this

我学到衬线和无衬线字体 I learned about serif and san serif typefaces

怎么样在不同的字母组合间改变字的间距 About varying the amount of space between different letter combinations

以及如何做出漂亮的版式 About what makes great typography great

书法里所蕴含的那种美妙 It was beautiful

字体上所赋予历史感和艺术精妙 Historical artistically subtle in a way

是科学永远不能捕捉到的 That science can't capture

我发现那实在是太迷人了 And I found it fascinating

当时看起来这些东西好像一无是处 None of this had even a hope

好像都没有什么实际应用的可能 Of any practical application in my life

但是十年之后 But ten years later

当我们设计第一台苹果电脑的时候 When we were designing the first Macintosh computer

就不是那样了 It all came back to me

我把当时我学的那些东西全都设计进去了 Mac And we designed it all into the Mac

那是第一台使用了漂亮的印刷字体的电脑 It was the first computer with beautiful typography

如果我当时在大学没有学习这门课程 If I had never dropped in on that single course in college

苹果就不会有这么多丰富的字体 The Mac would have never had multiple typefaces

以及赏心悦目的字体间距 Or proportionally spaced fonts

即使微软抄袭了苹果 And since Windows just copied the Mac

它的个人电脑也不会有现在这么漂亮的字型 It’s likely that no personal computer would have them

如果我没有退学 If I had never dropped out

我也不会痴迷于这个美术课程 I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class

然后个人电脑也不会有 And personal computers might not have

如此美丽的字体 The wonderful typography that they do

当然我在大学的时候 Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward

还不可能预先把点点滴滴串联在一起 When I was in college

只有当我回首往事的时候才会明白 But it was very very clear looking backwards ten years later

再次说明的是 你不可能未卜先知 Again you can't connect the dots looking forward

你只能在回顾时才明白这些是如何串起来 you can only connect them looking backwards

所以你必须相信 So you have to trust that

你现在所体会的在将来多少会联系在一块 The dots will somehow connect in your future

你必须相信某些东西 You have to trust in something

你的直觉也好 命运也好 不管什么 Your gut destiny life karma whatever

because believe in the dots will connect down the road, would give you a confidence to follow your heart, even wanna lead you to off warm well path,

只是让我的生命更加地与众不同而已 and that would made all the differecne

我的第二个故事是关于爱和失去 My second story is about love and loss

我很幸运 I was lucky

因为在很早的时候 我就找到了我所钟爱的东西 I found what I loved to do early in life

二十岁的时候 沃茨和我就在父母的车库里面 Wiz and I started Apple in my parent’s garage

开创了苹果公司 When I was 20

我们工作得很努力 十年后这个公司就发展成 We worked hard and in 10 years Apple had grown

从那两个车库中的穷小子 From just the two of us in a garage

到超过四千名的雇员 价值超过二十亿的公司 Into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees

在公司成立的第九年 We just released our finest creation

我们刚刚发布了最好的产品 那就是苹果电脑 The Macintosh a year earlier

我也快到三十岁了 这时我被公司炒了鱿鱼 And I had just turned 30 and then I got fired

怎么可能被自己创立的公司炒了鱿鱼呢 How can you get fired from a company you started

在苹果快速成长的时候 Well as Apple grew we hired someone

我们雇用了一个很有天分的家伙 Who I thought was very talented

和我一起管理这个公司 To run the company with me

在最初的几年里公司运转得很好 And for the first year or so things went well

但是后来我们对未来的看法发生了分歧 But then our visions of the future began to diverge

我们吵了起来 And eventually we had a falling out

而这个时候 董事会站在了他的那一边 When we did our Board of Directors sided with him

所以在我三十岁的时候 我在众目睽睽下被开除了 So at 30 I was out and very publicly out

而立之年 我生命的全部支柱离自己远去 What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone

这是一场毁灭性的打击 And it was devastating

最初的几个月里 我不知所措 I really didn't know what to do for a few months

我觉得我很令上一代的创业家们失望 I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down

我把他们交给我的接力棒弄丢了 That I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me

我和戴维·帕卡德 鲍勃·诺伊斯见面 I met with David Packard and Bob nonce

为我的糟糕表现向他们道歉 And tried to apologize for screwing up so badly

我成了典型的案例 I was a very public failure

甚至想逃离硅谷 And I even thought about running away from the valley

但是 我看到了一个希望 But something slowly began to dawn on me

因为我仍然热爱着我所从事的工作 I still loved what I did

尽管我被苹果公司开除了 It's turn of events at Apple

却从来没有改变过我的想法 Had not changed that one bit

也就是说虽然我离开了公司 但对我所喜爱的事业热情不减 I had been rejected but I was still in love

我决定从头再来 And so I decided to start over

我当时没有察觉 I didn't see it then

但是事后证明 But it turned out that getting fired from Apple

被苹果公司开除是我这辈子里发生的最奇妙的事情 Was the best thing that could have ever happened to me

成功的沉重 The heaviness of being successful was replaced

被凤凰涅槃的轻盈所代替 By the lightness of being a beginner again

没有比这更确定的事情了 Less sure about everything

它让我轻装上阵 It freed me to enter

我由此进入了我生命中最有创造力的时刻 One of the most creative periods of my life

在接下来的五年里 During the next five years

我创立了一个名叫NeXT的公司 I started a company named NeXT

还有一个叫皮克斯的公司 Another company named Pixar

同时与一位美丽的女人共浴爱河 And fell in love with an amazing woman

她后来成为了我的妻子 Who would become my wife

皮克斯制作了世界上第一个用电脑制作的 Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer

动画电影 玩具总动员 Animated feature film “Toy Story”

现在是世界上最成功的动画工作室 And is now the most successful animation studio in the world

在后来的一系列运作中苹果收购了NeXT In a remarkable turn of events Apple bought NeXT

然后我又回到了苹果公司 I returned to Apple

我们在NeXT发展的技术 And the technology we developed at NeXT

在苹果今天的复兴之中发挥了关键的作用 Is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance

我还和劳伦斯一起建立幸福美满的家庭 And Laurence and I have a wonderful family together

我可以非常肯定 如果我不被苹果开除 I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened

这其中一件事情也不会发生的 If I hadn't been fired from Apple

良药苦口 It was awful tasting medicine

但是我想病人需要这个药 But I guess the patient needed it

有些时候 生活会给你当头棒喝 Sometimes life hits you In the head with a brick

不要失去信仰 Don't lose faith

我很清楚惟一使我一直走下去的 I'm convinced that the only thing

就是做我无比钟爱的事情 That kept me going was that I loved what I did

你需要去找到你所爱的东西 You've got to find what you love

这是一条适合于工作和爱情的信条 And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers

你的工作将占据生活中很大的一部分 Your work is going to fill a large part of your life

你只有相信自己所做的是伟大的工作 And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do

你才能怡然自得 What you believe is great work

而伟大的工作就是你所热爱的 And the only way to do great work is to love what you do

如果你现在还没有找到 If you haven't found it yet

那么继续找 不要停下来 Keep looking Don't settle

只要全心全意去找 As with all matters of the heart

在你找到的时候 你的心会告诉你的 You’ll know when you find it

就像任何真诚的关系 And like any great relationship

只会随着岁月的流逝 而变得越来越紧密 It just gets better and better as the years roll on

所以继续找 不要停下来 So keep looking Don't settle

我的第三个故事是关于死亡的 My third story is about death

当我十七岁的时候 我读到了一句话 When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like

如果你把每一天都当做生命中最后一天去过 "If you live each day as if it was your last someday

那么有一天 你会发现你是正确的 You’ll most certainly be right”

这句话给我留下了很深的印象 It made an impression on me

从那以后 又过了三十三年 And since then for the past 33 years

每天早晨我都会对着镜子问自己 I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself

如果今天是我生命中的最后一天 "If today was the last day of my life

你会不会完成你今天想做的事情呢 Would I want to do what I am about to do today”

当答案连续是不的时候 And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row

我知道自己需要改变某些事情了 I know I need to change something

记住 你即将死去 Remembering that I'll be dead soon

是我一生中最重要的箴言 Is the most important tool I've ever encountered

它帮我指明了生命中重要的选择 To help me make the big choices in life

几乎所有的事情 Because almost everything

包括所有的荣誉 所有的骄傲 All external expectations all pride

所有的恐惧 All fear of embarrassment or failure

这些在死亡面前都会消失 These things just fall away in the face of death

我看到的是那些留下的真正重要的东西 Leaving only what is truly important

你有时候会思考 你将会失去某些东西 Remembering that you are going to die is the best way

记住 你即将死去 I know to avoid the trap of thinking

我认为是避免这些想法的最好方式 You have something to lose

你已经一无所有 You are already naked

你没有理由不去聆听你内心的呼唤 There is no reason not to follow your heart

大概一年以前 我被诊断出癌症 About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer

我在早晨七点半做了一个检查 I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning

上面清楚显示 我的胰腺上有个肿瘤 And it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas

我当时都不知道胰腺是什么东西 I didn't even know what a pancreas was

医生告诉我 The doctors told me this was almost certainly

那很可能是一种无法治愈的癌症 A type of cancer that is incurable

我的生命只有三到六个月的时间 And that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months

我的医生让我回家 然后安排好自己的事情 My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order

这也是医生对所有临终病人的嘱咐 Which is doctor's code for prepare to die

这意味着要把未来十年你对你小孩说的话 It means to try to tell your kids everything

在几个月里说完 You thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months

意味着把每件事情都安排好 It means to make sure everything is buttoned up

让你的家人尽可能轻松的生活 So that it will be as easy as possible for your family

意味着你要说 再见了 It means to say your goodbyes

我整天都在想着那个诊断书 I lived with that diagnosis all day

有一天晚上 我做了一个活切片检查 Later that evening I had a biopsy

医生将一个内窥镜从我的喉咙伸进去 Where they stuck an endoscope down my throat

通过我的胃 然后进入肠道 Through my stomach and into my intestines

用一根针在我的肿瘤上取了几个细胞 Put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor

我当时是被麻醉的 但是我的妻子在那里 I was sedated but my wife who was there

她后来告诉我 当医生在显微镜下 Told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope

观察这些细胞的时候 他们开始尖叫 The doctors started crying

因为这些细胞是一种罕见的 Because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer

并可以治愈的胰腺癌的细胞 That is curable with surgery

我接受了这个手术 现在我痊愈了 I had the surgery and thankfully I'm fine now

那是我最接近死亡的时候 This was the closest I've been to facing death

我真的不希望以后还能如此接近它 And I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades

与死神擦肩而过之后 Having lived through it

我可以更肯定地说 I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty

死亡对我来说不只是书本上的概念 Than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept

没有人愿意死 即使人们想上天堂 No one wants to die even people who want to go to heaven

人们也不会为了去那里而死 Don’t want to die to get there

我们每个人都会面临死亡 And yet death is the destination we all share

从来没有人能够逃脱它 No one has ever escaped it and that is as it should be

因为死亡就是生命中最好的一个发明 Because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life