This is a very famous speech of Steven Jobs, CEO of Apple, for new graduates. This speech has brought a lot of good things to my life. Hope it will also bring it to you ( Nguyet Anh) 

I am very honored to be present at your graduation ceremony today at a prestigious university best of the world. I never had a college degree. 
To be honest, in fact, I’ve never been to college. Today, I want to tell you three stories that have happened in my life. Just that, nothing big, just three stories. 

The first story is about connecting the dots

(Connecting the dots – to find the way to go) 
I dropped out after only six months of studying at Reed College, I stayed there temporarily for 18 Months before I officially left Reed. 

Why did I drop out? 

I started it when I was born. My biological mother is a young, single female student and she decided to adopt me. She really wants me to be adopted by someone who has graduated from college. So everything was set for me to be adopted by a lawyer couple. However, all that changed at the last minute when I was crying, they changed their mind and wanted to adopt a baby girl, not me.

That’s why my adoptive parents now have a phone call at midnight asking if they want me, a boy born unexpectedly, or not. My parents replied that of course. Later, my biological mother found out that my future mother had not graduated from college and my adoptive father had not graduated from high school. She refused to sign the adoption papers. A few months later, she agreed, when my adoptive parents promised me to go to college.

17 years later, I was also in college, but I was naive to choose a college that was as good as Stanford. All of my parents’ savings were spent on paying my tuition. After six months, I did not see the benefits of college. I have no answer about what I will do with my life and I do not believe that the university can help me answer that question. I spent all my parents saving my retirement in college. So I decided to drop out and believe that everything would be fine. At that time, things seemed to be very difficult but when I looked back, I found that it was the right decision for me. The moment I left school, I gave up the subjects I did not like, instead,

It did not work out a bit. I do not have a room so I have to sleep on the floor in my friend’s room. I make $ 5 a piece of food, pay back the bottles of Coca-Cola, and walk seven miles across town to get a good meal at Hare Krishna. I enjoyed the food there. After this, I learned that what I have been through when trying to pursue my passion is priceless. I will give you an example:
Perhaps at that time, Reed was the only school in the country to introduce beautiful typography. In all the campuses, all the posters, the titles of all the paintings are hand-written beautifully. Since I was leaving school and did not have to attend the usual compulsory courses, I decided to take a beautiful writing course. I learned to write the words in the foot, the changes in the distance between the lines, learn how to print a large print beautiful. I realize that this is a very artistic, historical and beautiful subject that science can not do.

Those things seem to have no real meaning in my life. However, 10 years later, when we were designing the first generation of Machintosh computers, all of that seemed to come back to me and we designed to install all those pieces. On the computer, Machintosh was the first computer to have beautiful artwork. If I did not take that course at school, the Mac would never have so many fonts. Since Windows has copied those Mac fonts, no personal computer does not have those fonts.

If I did not drop out and did not take part in a beautiful typing course, all my PCs would probably not have them. Of course, when I was in college, I could not connect those landmarks when it was in the future. But 10 years later, that is very, very clear. 

Again, I want to tell you, we can not know if the landmarks are connected in the future, you can only know those things when looking back. So, trust that, in a way, the landmarks will connect in the future. You also need to believe in some other things: determination, destiny, life, cause and effect or whatever. That method never disappointed me and it made a difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss. 
I was very lucky that I wanted to start working very early. Woz and I started the first pages of Apple’s history in my parents’ garage when I was 20 years old. We worked so hard that after 10 years, from only two people, in a small garage, Apple has grown into a $ 2 billion company with more than 4,000 employees. A year ago, we just left our first creation, the Macintosh, and I just turned 30. After that, I was fired. How could you be fired by a company you founded? Oh, when Apple grew bigger, I hired someone I thought was capable of leading me in the company.

For about a year, the situation seems very positive. But then, our views on the future began to differ, even as we became dissonant. When there was a dispute between us, the board was on his side, and I, at the age of 30, had been laid off very clearly. Things that I pursued throughout my life have disappeared, they were destroyed.
In a few months, I really did not know what to do. I feel that I have made the generations before me disappointed and that I dropped the flag when it was passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce, trying to apologize for my bad behavior. I lost a clear and even, I had intended to give up. But there was something slowly starting to light up in me. I still love what I have created. The thing that happened at Apple has changed that love a bit but in me, that love is still. Therefore, I decided to start again.

At the time I did not notice, but later, I learned that my dismissal from Apple turned out to be the best thing in my life. The burden of success has been replaced by the light of the new beginning, though there is no certainty. I let myself go free in a lifetime filled with the creativity of my life.

About 5 years later, I started building NeXT and another company called Pixar. I met and fell in love with a wonderful woman, who was my wife later. Pixar created the world’s first animated feature film, the toy story. At present, it has become the most successful animation studio in the world. A remarkable change occurred when Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, the techniques that NeXT has developed become a source of inspiration for Apple’s recovery. 

Me and Laurene also have a happy family. 

I am confident that all of this will never happen if I am not fired by Apple. It’s a bitter pill but I’m sure patients will need it.

Sometimes life seems to try to knock you down. But please do not lose faith. I know for sure that the only thing that keeps me going is my love for what I did. You have to find out what you love. It is always right for your work and for your loved ones. Work will take your life and the only way to truly succeed is to do things you believe are great things. And the way to create great jobs is to love what you do. If you have not found it, please continue to search. Do not give up because with your heart you will know when you find it. And like any relationship, it will become better as the years go by. So try to search until you find your love,

My third story is about death. 

When I was 17 years old, I read an adage like this: If you live each day like the last day of your life, someday you will be completely convinced that you are right. That motto left a deep impression on me and since then, over the past 33 years, I have always looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: If today was the last day of my life, What do I want to do and what am I going to do today? And if for many days, the answer is “no” then I know, I need to change something.

Thinking about dying is the important thing that motivates me to create great opportunities for my life. Because everything from people’s expectations to you, all pride to being afraid of shame or failure, all will disappear when you face death. . Then, there is only one thing that is really important. To think that we are facing death, when we are about to be nothing, is the best way I know to avoid being afraid. afraid of losing something. 

There is no reason for you not to listen to the heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I took a scan at 7:30 am and the film clearly shows a tumor in the pancreas. I do not even know what the pancreas is. Doctors told me that this is a form of cancer and that it is incurable, that I should be prepared to live only three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and rearrange my work, which is how they say when they advise patients to prepare for death. That means go back and spend the rest of the month telling your children what you intend to say to them in about ten years. It also means that you try to keep it private so that your family can accept it more easily. That means you say goodbye.

Every day I live with that diagnosis. Then, one evening, I conducted a biopsy, they inserted a tube through my throat, inserted deep into the stomach, deep into the intestine, pressing a needle into my pancreas to get some samples. Tumor cells. At that time, I was very calm, but my wife, who was present at the time, told me that when doctors analyzed the cells under a microscope, they shouted out that it was a school. Pancreatic cancer rare can be cured by surgery. I had surgery and now I’m fine.

That was the feeling I had when facing death and I also hoped I would have that feeling for a few more decades. Once I have experienced that, I can say with greater certainty than merely referring to death as a useful but purely intellectual content.
Nobody wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven do not want to die just because they want to go there. And death is the goal that we all must come to, none of us get out of it. And that is the way it must be because death is the greatest creation of life. That’s life’s change agent. It eliminates the old to pave the way for young people. Right now, you are young, but it will not be long before your graduates get older and will be eliminated. 

I’m sorry I look like I’m a bit emotional but that’s true.

Your time is limited, so do not waste it living someone else’s life. Do not confine yourself to certain beliefs, live so as to live by the thoughts of others. Do not let other people’s opinions blur the outlook of yourself. 

The most important thing is to bravely follow the heart and intuition of you. Somehow, they know what you really want to become. Other things are secondary.

When I was young, there was a strange book published under the name of The Handbook of the World, this book is like the bible of our generation. The creator of this book was Stewart Brand, a graduate student at Menlo Park, not far from here. He created it with his poetic sense. That time was in the late 1960s, before computers and laptops. All books are typewritten, scissors and camera. It’s like the Google page on paper, 35 years ago, when there was a Google page. It is truly idealistic, made up of exquisite tools and great ideas.

Stewart and his colleagues published several volumes of the World Handbook and later, they published the final volume. That time was around the mid-70’s and I’m just your age now. On the back cover of the book is a photo of a rural road in the dawn, which you can find peace if you are adventurous. Below the picture read: “Always be thirsty. Keep foolish.” That was their goodbye at the end of the book. “Always be thirsty. Keep foolish.” And I always wish it for myself. Today, you have graduated and prepared to enter the new path, I wish it to you. 

Always be thirsty. Keep fooling.