"Insanelt Great" are the two words that Steve Jobs always use and in my own opinion, it fits him perfectly.
I heard about the news that he passed away on a radio program on the way to work yesterday morning. At first, I didn't thought that they meant that he's already dead. Imagine, the news the other day was about the launching and disappointment for iPhone4s then the following day, its about Steve Jobs' passing away. The timing are just unbelievable. But then when I opened my PC, all the news was about his passing. Even the social networking sites are all about Steve Jobs, and so it's indeed true.
It's amazing how almost everybody's affected and felt the loss of this great man. Reading the tributes for him are so WOW! It really showed how great he was, how admired, how loved and how big his impact is to the world and to almost everyone. I can't blame them. I'm not really an apple user, I maybe drooling about their products but the practical me chooses the same specs with lower price. But then, when I read Steve Jobs' speech in 2005 Stanford Commencement, I became a fan.
That speech alone is packed with a lot of his wisdom based on his life. It's not only wisdom but inspiration and motivation. It shows how dream and passion can take you to places. It teaches you about perseverance , humility, focus and not giving up.
In that speech, Steve Jobs talked about looking and learning from your past:
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.
He talked about love, loss, humility, perseverance and passion:
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.
He talked about how to live life:
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.
He taught us how to use even our greatest adversary, death, as an opportunity to live life to the fullest and with utmost meaning:
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.
He talked about reality and purpose of death:
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.
He talked about how the most important thing in life:
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 others’ 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.
And he ended his speech with four powerful words about improving yourself:
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
These are just the wisdom you'll get from one of his speeches. When you google "Steve Jobs quotes", you'll get a lot more and of course, you'll learn a lot while reading it.
In my facebook wall, I posted one of his quotes which I find is timely for his passing:
"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me." - Steve Jobs
Thank you Steve Jobs for doing wonderful things, for all the insanely great things that you've done for us, for all the wisdom that you have shared, for being the insanely great innovator that you are and for raising the bar so high that everybody in technology industry now is trying to achieve perfection. You will be missed but will never be forgotten.
Tributes to Steve Jobs:
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/business/10/06/11/tributes-apple-visionary-steve-jobs-pour
Steve Jobs Quotes:
http://www.macstories.net/roundups/inspirational-steve-jobs-quotes/
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/09/20/the-top-20-most-inspiring-steve-jobs-quotes/
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/steve_jobs/
Steve Jobs Speech at Stanford Commencement 2005: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
