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Advice from Steve Jobs on Living and Dying
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Wednesday's news that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave of absence until the end of June gives new relevance to a stirring commencement address he delivered three years ago.
On June 14, 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivered the commencement address at Stanford University. In the speech, Jobs, who was recovering from surgery to remove cancer from his pancreas, reflected on his own mortality as he delivered an uplifting but somber message: Live every day like your last, because one day it will be. An excerpt is below.
“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.
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.
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 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:
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.”
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I am such a fan of Steve Jobs.
I never heard of anyone that majored in poetry and physics until I read a bit about Steve Jobs. What a combination.
I think people who think someone is dying around them can make it a lot harder than it needs to be. Every day part of us dies, and part of us is reborn at the same time.
Energy is an incredible thing, I guess it is what life is. It is part of us, and part of everything around us.
I think we make it a lot more painful, when we think there is a huge barrier between the two.
Brilliant man! Probably the last vestige of couthe and integrity left in Western business. Death be not proud - John Donne redux!
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Amazing. Really well put. I have a whole new respect for the man....business be damned.
Wow, that's fantastic advice... I have a new hero, I think.
I don't know, it's easy to say "live each day like it's your last" and "make changes if you don't like doing what you're doing every day" when you're extremely wealthy and can do anything you want each day, including nothing at all. I HATE doing what I have to do every day for a living but I am not free to change it. Don't know how this advice applies to the majority of people who have to do whatever they have to do to get by, even if they hate it.
Steve you inspired me In the early 80s with your cool computers then in the 90s with your equally cool software (next) made money off your companies (pixar) and now continue to impress. I'll always remember the day we met, you probably don't but thats ok, cause you made an impact on me that resonated throughout my life and I thank you. Your one cool Human.
I hear what you're saying deborama but even if you aren't free to change what you have to do for a living, you are free to stop hating it. There are always choices even when we feel trapped.
Life can seem like a drag but it is a mystery and a gift. All the best.
Steve Jobs is the John Lennon of tech. Creator and destroyer. Lots of contradictions, has made a big influence for the positive and has also behaved pathologically.
Hope he makes a recovery to full health.
Thank you.
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