What I learned from Steve jobs

An Icon and a true Visionary passed away yesterday.

Most of you know who he was and I am not here to give his life history.What I wanted to blog about today is a speech he gave a few years back to the Graduating class at Stanford University. In the time leading up to the speech he had just survived his First bout with the Pancreatic cancer that eventually took his life yesterday afternoon. Here is but a sample of the 15 minute speech he gave....

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.
….
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.

The tragedy, of course, is that Steve Jobs was cleared away before he was old. He was 56 when he passed yesterday, the exact same age as my Father Jack when he passed. Sadly, both had more to give.

Steve was full of passion and he lived that every day of his life.

When someone come along that changes the way the world thinks and works like he did, you create an almost cult following. Apple aficionados are cult like. They fiercely defend their apple stuff and their culture. I for one, tip my hat to the man that he was and that is how I will remember him

Live each day to the fullest. He sure did.

Here is the link to the full speech from TED.
http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html

Thanks for the continued reading of my ramblings.


Kevyn