Steve Jobs，CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios
Stanford University，June 12th，2005
If you do something and it turns out pretty good，then you should go do something else wonderful，not dwell on it for too long.Just figure out what’s next.
你如果出色地完成了某件事，那你应该再做一些其他的精彩事。不要在前一件事上徘徊太久，想想接下来该做什么。
Steve Jobs
背景故事
2005年6月12日，在美国斯坦福大学毕业典礼上，苹果公司CEO史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）发表了精彩演讲。已被确诊身患癌症的乔布斯对在场学子讲述了自己经历的三个故事，与学子们分享自己的创业心得，并以此激励年轻一代勇敢、积极、快乐地面对人生。这三次体验不仅在斯坦福大学的毕业生、也在硅谷乃至其他地方的技术同行中引起了巨大反响。
从大学里辍学是他这一生做出的最为明智的一个选择，因为它逼迫他学会了创新。乔布斯对操场上挤得满满的毕业生、校友和家长们说：“你的时间有限，所以最好别把它浪费在模仿别人这种事上。”同样，如果还在学校的话，似乎不应该去模仿退学的牛人们。乔布斯朴实而真诚的演讲不但赢得了全场数次热烈鼓掌和尖叫，也成为近年美国毕业典礼演讲中最具影响力的一篇。时至今日，这一演讲仍然对广大学子和创业者产生着深远影响。
名人简介
史蒂夫·保罗·乔布斯，美国发明家、企业家、美国苹果公司联合创办人。乔布斯被认为是计算机业界与娱乐业界的标志性人物，他经历了苹果公司几十年的起落与兴衰，先后领导和推出了麦金塔计算机（Macintosh）、iMac、iPod、iPhone、iPad等风靡全球的电子产品，深刻地改变了现代通讯、娱乐、生活方式。乔布斯同时也是前Pixar动画公司的董事长及行政总裁。
美国总统奥巴马：乔布斯是美国最伟大的创新领袖之一，他的卓越天赋也让他成为了能够改变世界的人。微软联合创办人比尔·盖茨：很少有人对世界产生像乔布斯那样的影响，这种影响将是长期的。
演讲赏析
Live Your Own Life
Steve Jobs，CEO of Apple Computer and of
Pixar Animation Studios
Stanford University，June 12th，2005
Thank you.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.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 six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18months 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 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’ve got an unexpected baby boy.Do you want him？”They said，“Of course.”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.And 17years 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 of how college was going to help me figure it out，and here I was spending all 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 far more 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 five-cent deposits to buy food with，and I would walk seven 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-calligrapher.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.
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.If I had never dropped out，I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals 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-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.
My second story is about love and loss.