蘋果創(chuàng)始人史蒂夫•喬布斯在斯坦福大學(xué)畢業(yè)典禮的演講
2011-08-25 14:35
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
史蒂夫 喬布斯(Steve Jobs)在斯坦福大學(xué)2005年畢業(yè)典禮上的演講
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.Truth be told, I never graduated from college. Truth be told, 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.
我今天很榮幸能和你們一起參加畢業(yè)典禮,斯坦福大學(xué)是世界上最好的大學(xué)之一。我從來沒有從大學(xué)中畢業(yè)。說實(shí)話,今天也許是在我的生命中離大學(xué)畢業(yè)最近的一天了。今天我想向你們講述我生活中的三個(gè)故事。不是什么大不了的事情,只是三個(gè)故事而已。
The first story is about connecting the dots.
第一個(gè)故事是關(guān)于如何把生命中的點(diǎn)點(diǎn)滴滴串連起來。
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
我在Reed大學(xué)讀了六個(gè)月之后就退學(xué)了,但是在十八個(gè)月以后--我真正的作出退學(xué)決定之前,我還經(jīng)常去學(xué)校。我為什么要退學(xué)呢?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college 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 have 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.
故事從我出生的時(shí)候講起。我的親生母親是一個(gè)年輕的,沒有結(jié)婚的大學(xué)畢業(yè)生。她決定讓別人收養(yǎng)我, 她十分想讓我被大學(xué)畢業(yè)生收養(yǎng)。所以在我出生的時(shí)候,她已經(jīng)做好了一切的準(zhǔn)備工作,能使得我被一個(gè)律師和他的妻子所收養(yǎng)。但是她沒有料到,當(dāng)我出生之后, 律師夫婦突然決定他們想要一個(gè)女孩。所以我的生養(yǎng)父母(他們在待選名單上)突然在半夜接到了一個(gè)電話:"我們現(xiàn)在這兒有一個(gè)不小心生出來的男嬰,你們想要他嗎?"他們回答道: "當(dāng)然!"但是我親生母親隨后發(fā)現(xiàn),我的養(yǎng)母從來沒有上過大學(xué),我的養(yǎng)父 甚至從沒有讀過高中。她拒絕簽這個(gè)收養(yǎng)合同。只是在幾個(gè)月以后,我的父母答應(yīng)她一定要讓我上大學(xué),那個(gè)時(shí)候她才軟化同意。這是我人生的開始。
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 how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of 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 interesting.
在十七歲那年,我真的上了大學(xué)。但是我很愚蠢的選擇了一個(gè)幾乎和你們斯坦福大學(xué)一樣貴的學(xué)校, 我父母還處于藍(lán)領(lǐng)階層,他們幾乎把所有積蓄都花在了我的學(xué)費(fèi)上面。在六個(gè)月后, 我已經(jīng)看不到其中的價(jià)值所在。我不知道我真正想要做什么,我也不知道大學(xué)能怎樣幫助我找到答案。但是在這里,我?guī)缀趸ü饬宋腋改高@一輩子的 全部積蓄。所以我決定要退學(xué),我覺得這是個(gè)正確的決定。不能否認(rèn),我當(dāng)時(shí)確實(shí)非常的害怕, 但是現(xiàn)在回頭看看,那的確是我這一生中最棒的一個(gè)決定。在我做出退學(xué)決定的那一刻, 我終于可以不必去讀那些令我提不起絲毫興趣的課程了。然后我可以開始去修那些看起來有點(diǎn)意思的課程。
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 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 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:
但是這并不是那么羅曼蒂克。我失去了我的宿舍,所以我只能在朋友房間的地板上面睡覺,我去撿可以換5美分的可樂罐,僅僅為了填飽肚子, 在星期天的晚上,我需要走七英里的路程,穿過這個(gè)城市到Hare Krishna神廟(注:位于紐約Brooklyn下城),只是為了能吃上好飯--這個(gè)星期唯一一頓好一點(diǎn)的飯,我喜歡那里的飯菜。我跟著我的直覺和好奇心走, 遇到的很多東西,此后被證明是無價(jià)之寶。讓我給你們舉一個(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 san 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.
Reed大學(xué)在那時(shí)提供也許是全美最好的美術(shù)字課程。在這個(gè)大學(xué)里面的每個(gè)海報(bào), 每個(gè)抽屜的標(biāo)簽上面全都是漂亮的美術(shù)字。因?yàn)槲彝藢W(xué)了, 不必去上正規(guī)的課程, 所以我決定去參加這個(gè)課程,去學(xué)學(xué)怎樣寫出漂亮的美術(shù)字。我學(xué)到了san serif 和serif字體, 我學(xué)會了怎么樣在不同的字母組合之中改變空白間距, 還有怎么樣才能作出最棒的印刷式樣。那種美好、歷史感和藝術(shù)精妙,是科學(xué)永遠(yuǎn)不能捕捉到的, 我發(fā)現(xiàn)那實(shí)在是太迷人了。
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, its 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(dāng)時(shí)看起來這些東西在我的生命中,好像都沒有什么實(shí)際應(yīng)用的可能。但是十年之后,當(dāng)我們在設(shè)計(jì)第一臺Macintosh電腦的時(shí)候,就不是那樣了。我把當(dāng)時(shí)我學(xué)的那些 東西全都設(shè)計(jì)進(jìn)了Mac。那是第一臺使用了漂亮的印刷字體的電腦。如果我當(dāng)時(shí)沒有退學(xué), 就不會有機(jī)會去參加這個(gè)我感興趣的美術(shù)字課程, Mac就不會有這么多豐富的字體,以及賞心悅目的字體間距。因?yàn)閃indows只是抄襲了Mac,所以現(xiàn)在個(gè)人電腦就不會有現(xiàn)在這么美妙的字型了。當(dāng)然我在大學(xué)的時(shí)候,還不可能把從前的點(diǎn)點(diǎn)滴滴串連起來,但是當(dāng)我十年后回顧這一切的時(shí)候,真的豁然開朗了。
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 the dots would connect down the road would give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that would make all the difference.
再次說明的是,你在向前展望的時(shí)候不可能將這些片斷串連起來;你只能在回顧的時(shí)候?qū)Ⅻc(diǎn)點(diǎn)滴滴串連起來。所以你必須相信這些片斷會在你未來的某一天串連起來。你必須要相信某些東西:你的勇氣、目的、生命、因緣......因?yàn)橄嘈拍闵械狞c(diǎn)滴將在日后相連,將會給你聽從自己心靈的信心,即使這樣做會使你離開熟悉的道路。這將使一切大不相同。