| 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 this 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. |
當時看起來這些東西在我的生命中，好像都沒有什么實際應用的可能。但是十年之后，當我們在設計第一臺麥金托什電腦的時候，就不是那樣了。我把當時我學的那些東西全都設計進了麥金托什機。那是第一臺使用了漂亮的印刷字體的電腦。如果我大學時沒有一門心思地投入這門課程，麥金托什機就不會有這么多豐富的字體以及賞心悅目的字體間距。又因為微軟視窗系統只是照抄了麥金托什機，所以所有的個人電腦也都不會擁有它們。如果我當時沒有退學，就不會有機會去參加這個美術字課程，個人電腦也就不會擁有現在這么美妙的字型。當然我在大學展望未來的時候，還不可能把這些片段聯系起來，但是當我十年后回顧這一切，真是豁然開朗。 |
| 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. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. |
再次說明的是，你在向前展望的時候不可能將這些片段聯系起來；你只能在回顧的時候將點點滴滴串連在一起。所以你必須相信這些片段會在你未來的某一天互相呼應。你必須要相信某樣東西——你的勇氣、命運、生命、因緣，任何東西。這個過程從來沒有令我失望，只是讓我的生命更加地與眾不同。 |
| My second story is about love and loss. |
我的第二個故事是關于愛和失去。 |
| 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 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation -- the Macintosh -- a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? 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. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. |
我非常幸運，因為我在很早的時候就找到了我鐘愛的東西。我二十歲的時候就和沃茲在父母的車庫里面開創了蘋果公司。我們工作得很努力，十年之后，這個公司從那兩個車庫中的窮小子發展到了超過四千名的雇員、價值超過二十億的大公司。在公司成立的第九年，我們剛剛發布了最好的產品，那就是麥金托什機，我也剛到三十歲。而就在那一年，我被炒了魷魚。你怎么可能被你自己創立的公司炒了魷魚呢？嗯，在蘋果快速成長的時候，我們雇用了一個很有天分的家伙和我一起管理這個公司。在最初的幾年，公司運轉的很好。但是后來我們對未來的看法發生了分歧，最終我們吵了起來。當爭吵到不可開交的時候，董事會站在了他的那一邊。所以三十歲的時候，我被炒了，就在眾目睽睽之下。我生命的全部支柱離自己遠去，這真是毀滅性的打擊。 |
| 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. 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. 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 had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. |
在最初的幾個月里，我真是不知道該做些什么。我覺得我辜負了上一代的創業家們，我把他們交給我的接力棒弄丟了。我和創辦惠普的戴維·帕卡德、創辦英特爾的鮑勃·諾伊斯見面，并試圖向他們道歉。我把事情弄得糟糕透頂了。我成了盡人皆知的失敗者，我甚至想要遠遠逃離這令人傷心的地方。但是我漸漸發現了曙光，我仍然喜愛我從事的這些東西。蘋果公司發生的那些事情絲毫沒有改變這一點。我被驅逐了，但是我仍然鐘愛我所做的事情。所以我決定從頭再來。 |
| 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. |
我當時沒有覺察，但是事后證明，從蘋果公司被炒是我這輩子發生的最棒的事情。因為，作為成功者的負重感被重新作為一個創業者的輕松感覺所代替，一切都還不確定。這讓我覺得如此自由，進入了我生命中最有創造力的一個階段。 |
| 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 worlds first computer animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, 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. |
在接下來的五年里，我創立了一個名叫NeXT的公司，還有一個叫皮克斯的公司，然后和一位迷人的女性相愛，她后來成了我的妻子。接下來皮克斯制作了世界上第一部用電腦制作的動畫電影《玩具總動員》，現在已成為世界上最成功的動畫工作室。后來形勢發生了巨大的變化，蘋果公司收購了NeXT，于是我又回到了蘋果。我們在NeXT公司開發的技術在蘋果今天的復興之中發揮了關鍵的作用。同時，我和勞倫一起建立了一個美滿的家庭。 |
| 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. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. 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 your 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. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. 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 until you find it. Don't settle. |
我非常肯定地說，如果我不被蘋果開除的話，這些事情一件也不會發生。這劑良藥的味道實在是太苦了，但是我想病人需要這味藥。有些時候，生活會拿起一塊磚頭向你的腦袋上猛拍一下。不要失去信仰。我很清楚唯一使我一直走下去的，就是我做的事情令我無比鐘情。你需要去找到你所愛的東西。對于工作是如此，對于你的愛人也是如此。你的工作將會占據生命中很大的一部分。你只有相信自己所做的是偉大的工作，你才能獲得滿足。如果你現在還沒有找到，那么繼續尋找，不要停下來。只要全心全意地去找，在你遇到它的一瞬間就會知道。就像任何圓滿的關系，隨著歲月的流逝只會越來越緊密。所以繼續尋找，直到你找到它，不要停下來！ |
