Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address 2005
I’m 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.
今天，我很荣幸能和你们一同参加这场毕业典礼 —— 你们即将从世界上最顶尖的大学之一毕业。说实话，我从未大学毕业，这是我离大学毕业典礼最近的一次。
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.
今天我想给你们讲三个我人生中的故事。仅此而已，没什么特别的，就三个故事。
The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why’d I drop out?
第一个故事，关于 “串联生命中的点滴”。我在里德学院读了六个月就退学了，但之后又以旁听生的身份在学校待了大约 18 个月才彻底离开。我为什么要退学呢？
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.
这要从我出生前说起。我的生母是一位年轻的未婚研究生，她决定将我送养。她坚信我应该被大学毕业生收养，所以一切都安排妥当，我一出生就会被一对律师夫妇收养。
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’ve got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?” They said, “Of course.”
可当我出生时，那对夫妇却在最后一刻变了卦 —— 他们其实想要个女孩。于是我的养父母 —— 当时他们在收养等待名单上 —— 半夜接到了一个电话：“我们有一个意外出生的男婴，你们愿意收养他吗？” 他们回答：“当然愿意。”
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.
后来我的生母发现，我的养母从未大学毕业，养父甚至没读完高中。她拒绝签署最终的收养文件。几个月后，当我的养父母承诺一定会送我上大学时，她才松了口。这就是我人生的开端。
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.
17 年后，我确实走进了大学。但我天真地选了一所学费几乎和斯坦福一样昂贵的学校，而我工薪阶层的父母将毕生积蓄都花在了我的学费上。
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.
六个月后，我看不到这一切的意义所在。我完全不知道自己这辈子想做什么，也不知道大学能帮我找到答案。可我却在挥霍着父母一辈子攒下的血汗钱。
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.
于是我决定退学，相信一切总会有好的结果。当时这个决定很吓人，但现在回头看，这是我做过的最正确的决定之一。
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.
退学的那一刻，我终于可以不用再上那些毫无兴趣的必修课，转而旁听那些看起来更有意思的课程。
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.
当然，这并非全是浪漫的冒险。我没有宿舍，只能睡在朋友房间的地板上；靠退可乐瓶换五美分押金买食物；每周日晚上要步行七英里穿过城镇，去 Hare Krishna 寺庙吃一顿像样的饭。但我热爱这样的生活。
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.
而很多我凭着好奇心和直觉偶然接触的东西，后来都成了无价之宝。我举个例子吧。
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 sans-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.
当时的里德学院开设了全美最棒的书法课程。校园里的每一张海报、每一个抽屉上的标签，都是精美的手写书法。因为我退学了，不用上常规课程，便决定去上书法课，学习书写技巧。我学会了衬线字体和无衬线字体的区别，学会了调整不同字母组合间的间距，也明白了是什么让优秀的排版如此出众。那种美感、历史感和艺术上的细腻，是科学无法诠释的，我深深为之着迷。
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.
当时我完全想不到这些知识在日后会有什么实际用途。但十年后，当我们设计第一台麦金塔电脑时，这些记忆全都涌上心头。我们将这些书法知识融入了麦金塔的设计中，让它成为了第一台拥有精美排版的电脑。如果我当年没有旁听那门书法课，麦金塔就不会有多种字体和比例间距的字体。而因为 Windows 抄袭了麦金塔，很可能所有个人电脑都不会有这些功能。
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that 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.
如果我从未退学，就不会旁听那门书法课，个人电脑可能就不会有如今这般美妙的排版。当然，在大学时，我不可能前瞻性地串联起这些点滴；但十年后回头看，一切都清晰无比。再说一次，你无法前瞻性地串联生命中的点滴，只能在回顾时才明白它们的联系。所以你要相信，这些点滴总会在未来以某种方式串联起来。
You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. And that will make all the difference.
你必须相信一些东西 —— 你的直觉、命运、生活、因果报应，诸如此类。因为相信这些点滴终将串联，会给你追随内心的勇气，即便它会带你偏离寻常的道路。而这，会让一切变得不同。
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 ten years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees.
第二个故事，关于爱与失去。我很幸运，很早就找到了自己热爱的事业。20 岁时，我和沃兹在父母的车库里创办了苹果公司。我们努力工作，十年后，苹果从车库里的两个人发展成了一家市值 20 亿美元、拥有 4000 多名员工的公司。
We just released our finest creation—the Macintosh—a year earlier, and I’d just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started?
一年前，我们刚推出了最棒的产品 —— 麦金塔电脑，而我刚满 30 岁。就在这时，我被解雇了。自己创办的公司，怎么会被解雇呢？
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 30 I was out, and very publicly out.
事情是这样的：随着苹果的发展，我们聘请了一位我认为很有才华的人来和我一起管理公司。最初一年左右，一切都很顺利。但后来，我们对未来的愿景开始出现分歧，最终闹得不欢而散。当矛盾爆发时，董事会站在了他那边。就这样，30 岁的我出局了，而且是非常公开地出局。
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.
我成年后生活的重心突然消失了，这简直是毁灭性的打击。有好几个月，我真的不知道该做什么。我觉得自己让上一代企业家失望了，像是在接力赛中弄丢了接力棒。
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.
我见了戴维・帕卡德和鲍勃・诺伊斯，为自己搞砸了一切而道歉。我成了一个公开的失败者，甚至想过逃离硅谷。
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’d been rejected, but I was still in love.
但渐渐地，我明白了一件事：我依然热爱自己所做的事。苹果的变故丝毫没有改变这一点。我被拒绝了，但我依然热爱。
And so I decided to start over.
于是我决定从头再来。
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.
当时我并没有意识到，但后来发现，被苹果解雇是我人生中最幸运的事之一。成功带来的沉重压力被重新做回初学者的轻松所取代，对一切都不再那么确定。这让我得以进入人生中最具创造力的时期之一。
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.
在接下来的五年里，我创办了 NeXT 公司，又创办了皮克斯，还爱上了一位很棒的女性，她后来成了我的妻子。皮克斯推出了世界上第一部电脑动画长片《玩具总动员》，如今已成为全球最成功的动画工作室。
In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, and 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.
戏剧性的是，苹果后来收购了 NeXT，我也回到了苹果。我们在 NeXT 研发的技术，成了苹果复兴的核心。而我和劳伦也拥有了一个幸福的家庭。
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.
我敢肯定，如果当初没有被苹果解雇，这一切都不会发生。这就像一剂难吃的药，但病人确实需要它。
Sometimes life’s gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.
有时候，生活会给你当头一棒。但请不要失去信念。
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 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.
我坚信，支撑我走下去的唯一动力，是我热爱自己所做的事。你们必须找到自己热爱的东西 —— 无论是工作还是爱情，都是如此。工作会占据你人生的很大一部分，要想真正满意，就必须做你认为伟大的工作；而要做伟大的工作，就必须热爱自己所做的事。
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.
如果你还没找到，那就继续寻找，不要妥协。就像所有与心有关的事一样，当你找到它时，你会明白的。而就像一段美好的感情，它会随着岁月的流逝变得越来越好。所以，继续寻找吧，不要妥协。
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.”
第三个故事，关于死亡。17 岁时，我读到一句话，大概是：“如果你把每一天都当作生命的最后一天来过，那么总有一天你会是对的。”
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 wanna 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.
这句话给我留下了深刻的印象。从那以后，33 年来，我每天早上都会对着镜子问自己：“如果今天是生命的最后一天，我还会做今天要做的事吗？” 如果连续多天答案都是 “不”，我就知道自己需要改变了。
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.
时刻提醒自己终将死去，是我在人生重大抉择时最有用的工具。因为几乎所有一切 —— 他人的期待、骄傲、对尴尬或失败的恐惧 —— 在死亡面前都会烟消云散，只留下真正重要的东西。明白自己终将死去，是我所知避免 “患得患失” 的最好方法。你本就一无所有，没理由不追随自己的内心。
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.
大约一年前，我被诊断出癌症。早上 7 点半做的扫描，清楚地显示我的胰腺上有个肿瘤。我当时甚至不知道胰腺是什么。
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 doctors’ code for “Prepare to die.”
医生告诉我，这几乎肯定是一种无法治愈的癌症，我可能只剩三到六个月的生命。医生建议我回家打理好后事 —— 这是医生对 “准备好死亡” 的委婉说法。
It means to try and 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.
这意味着，要在短短几个月里，把本以为能在未来十年里对孩子们说的话都讲完；意味着要把一切安排妥当，让家人日后能轻松些；意味着要和所有人告别。
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.
我一整天都被这个诊断结果笼罩着。当天晚上，我做了活检：医生把内窥镜从我的喉咙插入，穿过胃，进入肠道，用针头从肿瘤中取出了一些细胞。
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 thankfully I’m fine now.
我当时处于麻醉状态，但在场的妻子告诉我，当医生在显微镜下观察细胞时，他们都哭了 —— 因为这是一种非常罕见的胰腺癌，可以通过手术治愈。我接受了手术，幸运的是，现在我没事了。
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.
这是我离死亡最近的一次，希望未来几十年都不会再这么近。有过这样的经历后，我现在能更肯定地对你们说这些话，而不再是把死亡当作一个有用却抽象的概念。
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’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
没有人想死。即使是想上天堂的人，也不想通过死亡到达那里。然而，死亡是我们共同的终点，没人能逃脱。这很合理，因为死亡很可能是生命最棒的发明。它是生命的变革者，清除旧的，为新的让路。
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’s quite true.
现在，你们就是 “新的”。但不久的将来，你们也会逐渐变成 “旧的”，被清除掉。抱歉说得这么伤感，但这是事实。
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.
你们的时间有限，不要浪费在重复别人的生活上。不要被教条束缚，教条就是活在别人的思考结果里。不要让他人的意见淹没你内心的声音。
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.
最重要的是，要有勇气追随自己的内心和直觉。它们早已知道你真正想成为什么样的人，其他一切都是次要的。
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.
我年轻时，有一本很棒的杂志叫《全球概览》，它是我们那一代人的圣经之一。创办者是斯图尔特・布兰德，就在不远处的门洛帕克。他用诗意的笔触让这本杂志充满生命力。
This was in the late sixties, 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, overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
那是在 60 年代末，个人电脑和桌面出版还没出现，所以杂志全是用打字机、剪刀和宝丽来相机制作的。它有点像纸质版的谷歌，比谷歌早了 35 年。它充满理想主义，满是实用的工具和伟大的想法。
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.
斯图尔特和他的团队出版了好几期《全球概览》。当它完成使命时，他们推出了最后一期。那是 70 年代中期，我正和你们现在一样大。
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.
最后一期的封底是一张照片，拍的是清晨的乡间小路 —— 如果你足够大胆，可能会在这条路上搭便车。照片下方写着：“求知若渴，虚心若愚。” 这是他们的告别语。
“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.
“求知若渴，虚心若愚。” 我一直以此自勉。现在，在你们毕业、即将开启新旅程之际，我也把这句话送给你们。求知若渴，虚心若愚。非常感谢大家。
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