Love is WORTH what all you are sacrificing for and even more…

Steve Jobs Commencement Address

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, at Stanford.

“I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. 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.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

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?

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 later found out 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 someday go to college.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

My second story is about love and loss.

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.

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.

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 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 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. 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.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

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.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.”

– Steve Job, CEO of Apple n Pixar

Truly an inspiring one. Steve Job is really an inspiration to people who have dream and wish to follow their dream instead of surrender to the reality. I’m going to take this as the motivation for me to work harder towards what I believe and dream for not by dreaming it, but realizing it. Hope it can be your motivation either.

我怕寂寞嗎？

也許吧…

人本來就是怕寂寞的動物

或許我只渴望得到多一點的觀注
或許我只希望有個人陪著我
或許我真的怕寂寞

又或許

我深怕著…
你不記得我這個怕寂寞的人

一年以後，

時間會把美麗的變成不美，把不美的讓我給忘了，也把你給忘了嗎？

乞求著……

My friend is complaining that my blog is becoming a sleeping blog especially with the adsense constantly showing irrelevant ads such as sleep cycles, insomnia, powerful sleeping secrets, sleeping wizard and etc as you can see on the left but I don’t think I wanna filter them because this are resulted by the post I wrote on sleeping and I have a individual ad on each post, so if I were to filter it, I won’t get the relevant ad on that particular post right? Anyway, I’m not too sure whether I’m right or wrong.

I guess I do have sleeping problems. I couldn’t sleep whenever it’s night. Mayb my sleeping pattern is all screwed up. and it’s worst when I’m waking up finding myself wasted the whole precious morning. I just can’t afford to live such life with lack of disciplines especially in Uni life. There won’t be mummy there waking me up if I’m late. But usually, I just tapped on my handphone n resume my sleep. Been doing this for the last six months. Anyway, I read an article on Being an Early Riser by Steve Pavlina linked by Jason Kottke. I think it does make sense but will it work? I mean I’ve been waking up at 6 am in the morning everyday in sch days and sleep in varried time but I’ve never failed to not felt sleepy in class. That’s why I hate waking up early. I would end up sleepy. This is really bad because I’m sleeping in between classes alot. (ok, sometimes in class too…)

Steve mentioned in his article that we should sleep only when we felt tired but of course, there will always be a limit where you have to go to bed even when you don’t feel tired. But we must always wake up at a fixed time. I really ought to set a fix time to wake up. 6am would be nice I supposed but can I wake up so early? I mean if I were to wake up at 6 am, and if I needed 6 hours sleep the very least, then I would have to sleep by 12am. That’s so early for a 2am person. I guess I just can’t live with just sleeping less than 6 hours because I’m sure I would be a walkin zombie the next day. My mood would be bad and everything would seems to go wrong. Poor friends will get scolded for no reason, family will get attitude from me.

I’ve read before that a habbit need at least 21days to form. So which is to say if I wanted my habbit to form before July, then I will have to start forming it now. Waking so early is scaring me because I’ve always been a night person for most of my life. Sometimes I would sleep at 4am or 6 am, sometime even worst, I could wake up all night. But all this would need payback, I have to payback my sleeping hours in double or sometimes tripple. This is not helping especially when I needed more time to complete those tasks chasing deadlines. I’m really a disorganized person and i’ve complained enough. I’m currently working on to get rid of my bad habbit and waking up early is one of the thing that I wish to overcome.

Anyway, I must go to bed now as I have to wake up early tomorrow. So, for a start off, 1am is better than 2am right? Sleeping problem is indeed a serious problem.

“Life is an art of drawing without an ERASER“

Based on a true real life story of a brave friend of mine. I’ve never thought this would happen in real life. I should really be contented for having what i have now. This post is dedicated to him for fighting so bravely against death. Name hasn’t been mentioned for privacy purpose. He knew who he is if he’s reading.

He was only 7 years old on that year.

Was being rushed home by his mum from tuition after getting a high fever. His mum went out to get him something to eat and had to rush back to work. He had an uneasy feeling not long after that, a strong feeling that something really bad is going to happen. His aunt came over to his house. He knew something bad happened. His mum was involved in a car accident. Rushed to the hospital with his aunt, but it was already too late. His mum passed away on her way to the hospital. He broke down and cry with his heart dropped and scattered.

Few years later, after getting over his mum’s death, the uneasy feeling came back striking him again. His dad was involved in another accident. The same scene of his mum dying projected right in front of his eyes. He knew he couldn’t lost his dad to Death, not once again. Rushing to the hospital once again with that bad feeling certainly is not helping at all. In his heart, he prayed and cried loud, praying so hard that his dad must still be alive on the very moment he sees him. Thank god, his dad is still alive. But however, there must be sacrifice made for the trade with Death. One of his leg has to be amputated in order to keep his life. That’s how Death’s business work. He was so glad that his dad was still alive, he cried in joy.

You might think that all this is really too much for a little boy to take by himself. Things should start to look bright from then. But you are wrong. This time Cancer came seeking for his dad’s life. It was a hard battle even though the insurance company gave him a hugh sum of money after the accident. Everything was sold just to keep his dad longer by his side. Money more than the insurance compensation was dumped in and rubber estate for his dad’s older days was being sold as well. RM 300 k was used but there wasn’t any sign of recover.

He stayed in his aunt house so that his aunt could take care of him. He was about to go to school on that day. He was just 12 in his supposed to enjoy childhood. That uneasy feeling came again. The warning from Death. The familiar yet horror feeling haunting him again. He knew that feeling few years back and now the feeling is back again. He ran back to his house as fast as he could like a mad child. He prayed hard for what he’s feeling was wrong. Was it?

Upon reaching his house, everything seems so quiet. Tranquil in his own way. But his heart, pounding so hard that it’s almost going to stop. He prayed in tears for his dad. He prayed that nothing bad happened. The door was locked. He knocked, he slammed and he kicked the door with his full force. He was still a kid. He shouted for his dad, but no reply. He tried to ram the door open but everything was a vain attempt. He realized that the door key was hanging outside the house. This even made him uneasy as this wasn’t how things meant to be. He quickly opened the freaking door, and ran towards his dad’s room. He shouted with all his heart for his dad, but quiet was all he heard.

When he reached his dad’s room, he was so glad to find his dad lying on his bed and not disappeared from his eyes. He went to shake his dad awake, but the touch on his dad’s body pushed him backwards and stumbled on the floor. Cold! His dad body was freezing cold. The warmth of his dad hugging him was no longer there. Not wanting to give up, he tried to feel for the warmth he used to feel from his dad. But Cold was all he felt. His little heart broke scattered again. Why? That’s all that filled his mind. Why must he be treated this way? What have he done wrong having to be treated this way TWICE? He had no answer to it. He lost the battle against Death once again. His dad commited suicide not wanting to burden his son’s life anymore.

Thank god he has a good aunt treating and taking care of him like his own son. He knew he have to live on strong to prove Death wrong. He knew he has to be brave.

Corporate Lesson 1:
A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.

The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next door neighbour. Before she says a word, Bob says, “I’ll give you £800 to drop that towel”

After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her £800 dollars and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks,”Who was that?” It was Bob the next door neighbour,”she replies. “Great!” the husband says, “did he say anything about the £800 he owes me?”
Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

Corporate Lesson 2:
A priest offered a lift to a Nun. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.
The nun said, “Father, remember Psalm 129?” The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, “Father, remember Psalm 129?” The priest apologized “Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.” Arriving at the convent, the nun went on her way. On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129.It said, “Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory”
Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

Corporate Lesson 3:
A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out.
The Genie says,” I’ll give each of you just one wish.” “Me first! Me first!” says the admin. clerk. “I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.

“Poof! She’s gone. “Me next! Me next!” says the sales rep. “I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal maeuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life. “Poof! He’s gone. “OK, you’re up,” the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, “I want those two back in the office after lunch.”
Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.

Corporate Lesson 4:
A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A rabbit asked him, “Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?” The crow answered: “Sure, why not.” So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. A fox jumped on the rabbit and ate it.
Moral of the story:
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very high up.

Corporate Lesson 5:
A turkey was chatting with a bull. “I would love to be able to Get to the top of that tree ” sighed the turkey, but I haven’t got the energy.”

“Well, why don’t you nibble on my droppings?” replied the bull.” they’re packed with nutrients” The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fourth night, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.
Moral of the story:
Bullshìt might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there.

After reading this, i guess my life is really not that sucks as i thought. I should be contented with what i have and what i had.

“Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have.”

Have you ever, at any one time, had the feeling that life is bad, real bad, and you wish you were in another situation?

You find life make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong…

Read the following story… it may change your views about life:

After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is.

I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household.

He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India…
that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback.

He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child’s right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother’s eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.

You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child’s hand been infected?? No, it was done for two simple words- - -TO BEG!

The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg.

Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock of 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered with sand, robbing bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger.

Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries. The owner was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities.

Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate. For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25.

He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn’t nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of…

Now I begin to think and feel it, too! Was my life really that bad?

Perhaps… no, I should not feel bad at all… What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.

“Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have.”

When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don’t see the one which has been opened for us.

It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it, but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives.

The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past,you can’t go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.