I recently came across a video on ted.com titled “Steve Jobs: How to live before you die” that shows Steve Jobs giving a commencement speech to the 2005 Stanford University graduating class. Steve starts out by saying that he has just three stories to tell them about his life and that he never graduated college, so the speech he was giving was the closest he ever got to commencement. This ties in perfectly to his first story about how he was put up for adoption when he was born because his biological mother never went to college, and wanted to have her son raised by a family that had graduated college. The family that ended up adopting him didn’t go to college and his biological mom was reluctant to give him up at first, but they promised her he would go to college. Steve goes on to say how he went to a very expensive school and couldn’t justify his parents spending all of their hard-earned money on classes he didn’t even enjoy so he dropped out. Before he left campus though, he “dropped in” on classes he wanted to take like a calligraphy course which later on inspired him to add different fonts to the first apple computer shaping the way we have our fonts today. This story is all about “connecting the dots”, because Steve had no way of knowing back when he was in the calligraphy course that it would inspire him later on in life, but looking back on it years later her can see how those moments led to him doing what he did.
This story is very inspiring because there are a lot of moments in everybody’s life where its easy to question yourself, and possibly doubt what you are doing or what has led you to the point you are at. At this moment I find myself wondering if I am doing the right thing, not that I am wasting my time but rather taking time away from something else that could lead me to greater success. This is a scary feeling for everybody because we have invested a lot of things to get us to this point and it is easy to think you failed. If we look at Steve Jobs as an example though, it may make it easier or more comforting to know that in those dark moments when everything seems impossible not to panic and just reach deep down and use whatever it is that gives you faith to keep going. Understand that you won’t be able to see the “dots” that connect your path until later on when you can look back and say that moment, even though at the time seemed impossible was what brought me to my achievements. I personally know I am doing what I want to do, so I have to just tell myself that if I take it day by day instead of looking far down the road everything will work out the way it is supposed to.
For the rest of Steve Jobs stories which go on to talk about seeing opportunities in life from our setbacks including death, click here.
