Thoughts On Steve

Wednesday October 5th, I was at work on my break and as I always do I reached in to my bag to retrieve my iPhone to see if I had any texts.  There was one from my mom.  All it said was, "Steve Jobs died at age 56."  And the first thing that popped into my mind, was the number 56.  I thought to myself, "that is way too young!"  My own father is 50 years old.  If I were to lose my dad a short 6 years from now..... I didn't even want to think about it.

Obviously I didn't have any kind of personal relationship with Steve Jobs, but for some reason the news of his death seemed to have a profound effect on me,  it deeply saddened me.  Im not sure why exactly, maybe is because in the last year his Apple products, such as my iPhone and MacBook Pro, had been such a big part of my life, or maybe it was because I had got to know Steve through the many articles and videos I had seen of him.  Who knows really? But what I did know is that there was a huge outpouring of grief, not only from the technology community, but it seemed every community was mourning the death of the great visionary.  Celebrities were tweeting their condolences and memories, people were flocking to there nearest Apple retail store to lay flowers or post a sticky note on the window with a few words for Steve on it.  I honestly don't remember the death of a person that seemed to have such an effect on so many various groups of people.  Barack Obama said that, "There may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device that he invented." I did. The President really put it perfectly.

Steve was not only just a technology titan though, he was also a father and husband, and our thoughts and prayers should go out to his whole family in their time of grief.  There is going to be a biography released for steve on October 24th written by Walter Isaacson, and I personally can't wait to read it and learn more about the amazing man that was Steve jobs. His legacy will live on through his products for many years to come.

Here are a few of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes, taken from his famous Stanford Commencement  speech.

“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.” 

“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.” 

“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.” 

“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.” 

“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”