喬布斯在斯坦福大學(xué)畢業(yè)典禮上演講
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.
謝謝大家。很榮幸能和你們，來(lái)自世界最好大學(xué)之一的畢業(yè)生們，一塊兒參加畢業(yè)典禮。老實(shí)說(shuō)，我大學(xué)沒(méi)有畢業(yè)，今天恐怕是我一生中離大學(xué)畢業(yè)最近的一次了。
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. 今天我想告訴大家來(lái)自我生活的三個(gè)故事。沒(méi)什么大不了的，只是三個(gè)故事而已。 The first story is about connecting the dots.
第一個(gè)故事，如何串連生命中的點(diǎn)滴。
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 did I drop outIt 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.
我在里得大學(xué)讀了六個(gè)月就退學(xué)了，但是在18個(gè)月之后--我真正退學(xué)之前，我還常去學(xué)校。為何我要選擇退學(xué)呢？這還得從我出生之前說(shuō)起。我的生母是一個(gè)年輕、未婚的大學(xué)畢業(yè)生，她決定讓別人收養(yǎng)我。她有一個(gè)很強(qiáng)烈的信仰，認(rèn)為我應(yīng)該被一個(gè)大學(xué)畢業(yè)生家庭收養(yǎng)。于是，一對(duì)律師夫婦說(shuō)好了要領(lǐng)養(yǎng)我，然而最后一秒鐘，他們改變了主意，決定要個(gè)女孩兒。然后我排在收養(yǎng)人名單中的養(yǎng)父母在一個(gè)深夜接到電話，“很意外，我們多了一個(gè)男嬰，你們要嗎？”“當(dāng)然要！”但是我的生母后來(lái)又發(fā)現(xiàn)我的養(yǎng)母沒(méi)有大學(xué)畢業(yè)，養(yǎng)父連高中都沒(méi)有畢業(yè)。她拒絕在領(lǐng)養(yǎng)書(shū)上簽字。幾個(gè)月后，我的養(yǎng)父母保證會(huì)讓我上大學(xué)，她妥協(xié)了。 This was the start in my life. 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. 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.
這是我生命的開(kāi)端。十七年后，我上大學(xué)了，但是我很無(wú)知地選了一所差不多和斯坦福一樣貴的學(xué)校，幾乎花掉我那藍(lán)領(lǐng)階層養(yǎng)父母一生的積蓄。六個(gè)月后，我覺(jué)得不值得。我看不出自己以后要做什么，也不曉得大學(xué)會(huì)怎樣幫我指點(diǎn)迷津，而我卻在花銷父母一生的積蓄。所以我決定退學(xué)，并且相信沒(méi)有做錯(cuò)。一開(kāi)始非常嚇人，但回憶起來(lái)，這卻是我一生中作的最好的決定之一。從我退學(xué)的那一刻起，我可以停止一切不感興趣的必修課，開(kāi)始旁聽(tīng)那些有意思得多的`課。
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. 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.
事情并不那么美好。我沒(méi)有宿舍可住，睡在朋友房間的地上。為了吃飯，我收集五分一個(gè)的舊可樂(lè)瓶，每個(gè)星期天晚上步行七英里到哈爾-克里什納廟里改善一下一周的伙食。我喜歡這種生活方式。能夠遵循自己的好奇和直覺(jué)前行后來(lái)被證明是多么的珍貴。讓我來(lái)給你們舉個(gè)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.
當(dāng)時(shí)的里德大學(xué)提供可能是全國(guó)最好的書(shū)法指導(dǎo)。校園中每一張海報(bào)，抽屜上的每一張標(biāo)簽，都是漂亮的手寫(xiě)體。由于我已退學(xué)，不用修那些必修課，我決定選一門(mén)書(shū)法課上上。在這門(mén)課上，我學(xué)會(huì)了“serif”和"sans-serif"兩種字體、學(xué)會(huì)了怎樣在不同的字母組合中改變字間距、學(xué)會(huì)了怎樣寫(xiě)出好的字來(lái)。這是一種科學(xué)無(wú)法捕捉的微妙，楚楚動(dòng)人、充滿歷史底蘊(yùn)和藝術(shù)性，我覺(jué)得自己被完全吸引了。
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.
當(dāng)時(shí)我并不指望書(shū)法在以后的生活中能有什么實(shí)用價(jià)值。但是，十年之后，我們?cè)谠O(shè)計(jì)第一臺(tái) Macintosh計(jì)算機(jī)時(shí)，它一下子浮現(xiàn)在我眼前。于是，我們把這些東西全都設(shè)計(jì)進(jìn)了計(jì)算機(jī)中。這是第一臺(tái)有這么漂亮的文字版式的計(jì)算機(jī)。要不是我當(dāng)初在大學(xué)里偶然選了這么一門(mén)課，Macintosh計(jì)算機(jī)絕不會(huì)有那么多種印刷字體或間距安排合理的字號(hào)。要不是Windows照搬了 Macintosh，個(gè)人電腦可能不會(huì)有這些字體和字號(hào)。
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.
要不是退了學(xué)，我決不會(huì)碰巧選了這門(mén)書(shū)法課，個(gè)人電腦也可能不會(huì)有現(xiàn)在這些漂亮的版式了。
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.
當(dāng)然，我在大學(xué)里不可能從這一點(diǎn)上看到它與將來(lái)的關(guān)系。十年之后再回頭看，兩者之間關(guān)系就非常、非常清楚了。你們同樣不可能從現(xiàn)在這個(gè)點(diǎn)上看到將來(lái)；只有回頭看時(shí)，才會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)它們之間的關(guān)系。所以你必須相信，那些點(diǎn)點(diǎn)滴滴，會(huì)在你未來(lái)的生命里，以某種方式串
聯(lián)起來(lái)。你必須相信一些東西——你的勇氣、宿命、生活、因緣，隨便什么——因?yàn)橄嘈胚@些點(diǎn)滴能夠一路連接會(huì)給你帶來(lái)循從本覺(jué)的自信，它使你遠(yuǎn)離平凡，變得與眾不同。
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