On June 12, 2005, Steve Job gave a speech to the graduating class at Stanford, telling them three important themes, “connecting the dots”, “love and loss”, and “death”. Each theme represented a period in his life where he was at his lowest but from these hardships, he learned valuable lessons that changed his life for the better. The first theme “connecting the dots” was about the time when Steve Jobs dropped out of college and wanted to only take classes that he liked. He was financially struggling as he had no place to sleep and had little money for food but still strived forward due to his curiosity and intuition. During the process, he came across a Caligraphy class. Although he didn’t think much of it at the time, he realized later how important this class will become to be as it was later the influence in Apple’s typography.
The value he learned through this experience was that there were a purpose and a reason for his actions. At the moment it is unseeable and maybe dark but towards the future, it will all make sense as the dots will all connect. I resonated a lot with this first theme as it was a message I needed to hear. I wasn’t always an IMM major; I first started off as an accounting major at TCNJ. I realized that accounting wasn’t for me so while looking for other majors to transfer into I found IMM. I was always interested in music as I was little and I was always fascinated with music production so I decided that IMM was the way to go. Along the process, I started to slowly lose the enthusiasm I first had joining IMM. I started to feel a little lost and questioning myself if I made the right decision to join IMM. I was felt as if I didn’t fit in the major and my passion for music slowly started to fade. I started to doubt my ability and my passion so I decided to not pursue music for my thesis. But hearing Steve Job’s story, it started to bring me the confidence that I am on the right path, that I may not know right at this moment but in the future, I will be able to see. So I decided to go back to my passion for music and to make my thesis about music. As Steve Jobs says, “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.”
His second theme “Love and Loss” was surrounded around the time when Steve got fired from Apple. Although he started up the company and found what he loved to do at an early age, he ended up getting cut from Apple due to some disagreements with his partner. Instead of going on a different path, he kept going and striving because of his passion and love. He started all over and again from the beginning and began a new start to life. In the process, he formed a company called NeXt and started up Pixar. He also ended up finding his wife along the lines of this whole process. Because of this new beginning and his love for work, he was able to gain a new view of things, a new perspective, and was later able to go back into Apple and reform it for the better.
Through his loss of a job, he learned that sometimes life will give you lemons, it will hit you with a wall, but you shouldn’t lose faith with that because it might be for the better. He also learned that because of his love, he was able to be back on his feet and become successful again so “you got to find what you love” because “to do great work is to love what you do”. This message hit hard at home. As I mentioned previous I started to avoid the thing that I love the most, music and honestly I was going to change path. However, through Steve Job’s speech about “love and loss”, I realized that I won’t be doing great work because I wasn’t doing what I loved. I was running away from my problems and losing faith when I should be doing the opposite. I should have just kept going down the path of music even though things were getting tough and I was starting to have doubt. I should have been more faithful to myself and stand my ground. This was the motivation drive that I need to keep going forward.
His last theme “death” was focused around his mental health. With his diagnosis of cancer, Steve changed his mentality on how to live life. Having death during near, he reevaluated his day-to-day life and felt the need to live each day to the satisfaction as if it was his final day on earth. He would always ask himself in the mirror “If today were the last day of my life would I want to do what I want to do” and if his answer was no too many times in a row, he would go and make a change.
Steve’s message to the class was, “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 thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” You shouldn’t be living your life with regret and live life on how you want to live it. Do everything to your fullest and live life until you are satisfied with your results. There have been many times in life where I told myself that I had all the time in the world so I would do things based on this saying. But as Steve told the graduating class of 2005, I should instead be thinking the opposite and base my actions if it was the last day on earth. If I ask myself the question “If today were the last day of my life would I want to do what I want to do” my immediate answer would be no. I need to pick up my slack and need to start living/working with no regrets. Because if I live with regret, then I wouldn’t living my life to the fullest and pushing myself to the best that I can be.
-Donna