You’ve Got to Find What You Love
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 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation—the Macintosh—a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired.
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. 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.
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.
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 world’s first computer animated feature film, , and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned 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.
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. 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. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Thank you all very much.
我很幸运——很早我就发现了生命中热爱的事业。在我父母的车库里，我和沃兹开创了苹果公司，当时我20岁。我们很努力地工作，十年间，苹果公司从只有我们两人在一间车库办公成长为一个拥有二十亿资产的大公司，雇员四千多人。我们发布了公司最好的产品——麦金托什机（Macintosh）——那年，我快30岁了。后来，我被解雇了。
有几个月我真的不知道做点什么。我觉得自己让先前的创业伙伴失望了——当指挥棒传递给我的时候，我却把它弄丢了。我去见戴维·帕卡德和鲍勃·诺伊斯，试图要为如此糟糕的结果说抱歉。慢慢地，我开始明白一些东西——我依然热爱我的事业，这一点没有因为在苹果公司的转变事件而改变。我是被丢弃了，但我却依然热爱它。于是，我决定重新开始。
在那时，我没有领会到，但后来证明，被苹果公司解雇是在我身上发生的最好的事情。重新开始的轻松感代替了作为成功者的重压，我不再需要确保每件事的可靠性。它让我自由地步入生命中最富创造性的阶段。
在接下来的五年里，我创办的公司一家名为NeXT，另一家叫皮克斯，我还爱上了一位令人惊奇的女人，她后来成了我的妻子。皮克斯制作了世界上第一部用电脑制作的动画电影——《玩具总动员》，现在也是世界上最成功的动画制作工作室。在一个不寻常的事件转变中，NeXT被苹果公司收购，我又回到了苹果公司，并且，苹果公司这次重新崛起的主要核心是我们在NeXT发展的技术。而我和劳伦娜也有了美满的家庭。
我非常肯定，如果苹果公司没有开除我，这一切也不可能发生。良药苦口利于病。有时，生活会用砖块撞击你的头脑，不要失去信念。我深信，我对我所做事业的热爱，是使我坚持走下去的唯一支柱。你已找到自己的所爱，选择工作与选择爱人是同样的道理。你的任务是充实你的大部分生命，而真正完成这一任务的唯一方法是去做你相信是伟大的事情。如果你还没有发现你的所爱，那就继续寻找吧，不要停滞。当你全心全意地寻找时，就会知道何时能找到它。所以，继续寻找，直到你找到为止，不要停滞。
你的时间有限，所以不要将时间浪费在过别人的生活上。不要被教条所束缚，否则你的生活就是遵循他人思考的结果。不要让你内心真正的声音被其他人嘈杂的观点所淹没。勇敢跟随自己的心灵和知觉，才是最为重要的。不知不觉中，它们早已知道你真正想成为怎样的人，其他的一切都是次要的。
非常感谢你们。
1. I really didn’t know to do for a few months. I felt that I had the previous generation of entrepreneurs down—that I had dropped the baton as it was passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and to apologize for screwing up so badly.
2. Your work is going to a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you is great work. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know you find it. So keep looking until you find it.
1. 我是被丢弃了，但我却依然热爱它。
2. 我非常肯定，如果苹果公司没有开除我，这一切也不可能发生。
3. 不知不觉中，它们早已知道你真正想成为怎样的人，其他的一切都是次要的。
1. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly.
apologize for：为……而道歉
2. 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.
turn out：生产；结果是；关掉；出动；驱逐