Steve Jobs (史蒂夫‧賈伯斯) 2005 年在史丹佛大學畢業典禮的演講

文章取自新民高中

Steve Jobs (史蒂夫‧賈伯斯) 2005 年在史丹佛大學畢業典禮的演講，這段演講長約 15 分，英文講稿約 2,200 字。下面是演講講稿及翻譯。翻譯時，我仍是儘量秉持「逐字翻譯，表達原意」的原則，以利讀者之英文學習。

原文講稿及中文翻譯：

Thank you. I’m honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.謝謝。今天來參加世上最好大學之一的畢業典禮讓我感到榮幸。老實說，我大學從未畢業而現在是我離大學畢業最近的時刻。

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.今天我想告訴你我生命的 3 個故事。就這樣。沒有什麼。只有 3 個故事。第一個故事是關於把點連接起來。

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen 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 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’ve got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?” They said, “Of course.” My biological mother found out later 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 go to college.

待在里德學院 6 個月後我即輟學，但仍然於課堂旁聽且待了約 18 個月後才真正退學。所以我為什麼輟學？這從我還未出生即開始。我的親生母親是個年輕、未婚的研究所學生，而她決定讓我被領養。她非常堅信我應被大學畢業生所領養，所以一切都已準備好讓我一出生即被一位律師及他的太太所領養，只是當我蹦出時，他們在最後一分鐘決定他們真正想要的是女孩。所以我的父母，他們在等候名單上，在半夜接到一通電話問說：「我們有一個突然出現的男嬰兒，你們想要他嗎？」他們說：「當然。」我的親生母親後來發現我的母親大學從未畢業而我 的父親高中從未畢業。她拒絕簽署最後的領養文件。幾個月後她終於接受，當我父母承諾我將會上大學後。

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely 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 of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all 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 far more interesting.

這是我生命的開始。而 17 年過後，我真的上了大學，但我天真的選了一個幾乎與史丹佛一樣貴的學院，而我勞動階級父母所有的積蓄都花費在我的大學學費上。6 個月後，我無法看見它的價值。我不知道我人生要做什麼，也不知道大學將如何幫助我想出，而我在這裡，花費我父母畢生所存下的錢。所以我輟學並相信一切事情都將順利解決。這在當時非常的可怕，但回顧過去，這是我做過最好的決定之一。(講到這時觀眾都在笑，但賈伯斯並沒有在開玩笑…) 我輟學的那一分起，我可以不用上那些我不感興趣的必修課程，並開始旁聽一些看起來有趣許多的課程。

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 five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven 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.

並非一切都是美好的。我沒有宿舍，所以我睡在朋友宿舍房間的地板。我退還可口可樂瓶子來換得五分錢的押金來購買食物，而每個星期天晚上我會走 7 英哩的路程穿過城鎮來到哈瑞奎師那神廟吃每星期的一頓好餐。我超愛它的！而我因跟隨好奇及直覺所涉足的的大部分事情後來都證明是無價的。讓我給你一個例子。

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 sans-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.

里德學院在當時提供全國或許最好的文字藝術課程。整個校園內，每一個海報、每個抽屜上的每一個標記都是用手美麗的刻畫出來。因為我已輟學且不必選修一般的課程，我決定上一堂文字藝術課程來學習文字藝術。我學到襯線及無襯線字體、改變不同字母組合間的空間、是什麼造就優良的排版。它是美麗的、俱歷史意義的、且藝術上微妙而致科學無法描述，而它使我著迷。

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, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.

這沒有一樣有任何希望會在我生命裡被實際運用。但十年後當我們在設計第一台蘋果電腦時，它全部都回來了，而我們將它全部都設計在蘋果電腦裡。它是第一個有美麗版面設計的電腦。如果我從未在大學裡旁聽那一堂課，蘋果電腦絕不會有幾種不同字體，或間隔均稱的字型，而由於微軟只是複製蘋果，或許沒有個人電腦會有它們。

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

如果我從未輟學，我就不會旁聽那堂文字藝術課程，而個人電腦可能就不會有它們美麗的版面設計。

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 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--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.

當然，當我在大學往前看時，把點連接起來是不可能的，但十年後往後看它是非常，非常清楚的。再提一次，往前看時你無法把點連起來。只有往後看時你才能連接它 們，所以你必需相信點將在你的未來以某種方式連接。你必需相信某些事情 – 你的直覺、命運、人生、因緣、不管是什麼 – 因為相信點將在未來的路上連接起來將帶給你追隨內心聲音的信心，即便它引領你離開已被踏平的步道，而那將造就所有的不同。

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 twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We’d just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I’d just turned thirty, 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, and so at thirty, 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’d been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

我的第二個故事是有關愛及失去。我是幸運的，我在年輕時就發現我喜愛做什麼。我 20 歲時沃茲與我在我父母的車庫開始了蘋果電腦。我們努力工作而在 10 年內，蘋果已從車庫內的只有我們兩個人成長至員工超過 4000 人，價值 20 億的公司。我們才剛推出我們最好的發明，蘋果電腦，在一年之前，而我才剛 30 歲，然後我被解僱了。你如何被自己所創立的公司解僱？這個… 當蘋果成長時，我們僱用了一個我覺得非常有才能的人與我一起經營公司，而頭一年前後，事情進展得不錯。但之後我們對未來的願景開始產生分歧，而最後我們有了爭吵。當我們爭吵時，我們的董事會支持他，所以 30 歲時，我被趕出了，且非常公開的被趕出。我整個成人人生的重心已經不在，而這是令人極為難過的。我有幾個月真的不知道要做什麼。我覺得我讓前一代的企業家失望，當接力棒傳給我時我讓它掉了下去。我與大衛‧帕卡德 (HP 創立人) 及鮑勃‧諾伊斯 (Intel 創立人) 見面並試圖因把事情搞得如此糟而道歉。我是一個非常公開的失敗而我甚至想過逃離矽谷。但我開始慢慢明瞭某些事情。我仍然喜愛我所做的事。在蘋果情勢的轉折並沒有改變這個事實的一點點。我被拒絕了但我仍在戀愛中。所以我決定從新開始。

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 in 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 world’s first computer-animated feature film, “Toy Story,” and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

我當時不知道，但被蘋果解僱可能是發生於我身上最好的事情。因成功所帶來的沉重感被重當新手的輕盈感所取代，對每件事皆較為不確定。它釋放我進入我生命最俱創造力的其中一個時期。在接下來的五年，我成立了一家名為 NeXT 的公司，另一家名為 Pixar (皮克斯動畫) 的公司，並愛上一位很棒的女人，她後來成為我的太太。Pixar 後來創造了世界第一部電腦動畫電影「玩具總動員」，且是現在全世界最成功的動畫電影公司。

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.

在一個令人驚奇的事件轉折裡，蘋果買下了 NeXT，而我回到了蘋果，而我們在 NeXT 所發展的科技是蘋果目前從新復興的核心，而勞倫與我共同擁有一個很棒的家庭。

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’s going to hit 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 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, and 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. Don’t settle.

我非常確定這沒有一樣會發生，如果我沒有被蘋果解僱。那是嘗起來極差的藥但我猜病人需要它。有時生命會用磚塊打你的頭。不要失去信念。我深信唯一使我繼續向前的是我喜愛我所做的事。你必需找到你喜愛的，而這道理適用於工作如同適用於你的愛人一樣。你的工作將占你生活的一大部份，而唯一感到真正滿足的方法是做你相信是卓越的工作，而唯一做卓越工作的方法是喜愛你所做的事。如果你還未找到，繼續找，不要妥協。如同所有與心相關的事情，當你找到時你會知道，就像任何良好的關係，一年年過後它只會愈來愈好。所以繼續尋找，不要妥協。

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 thing 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.

我的第三個故事是關於死亡。當我 17 歲時，我看到一句話大概是：「如果你過每一天有如那是你的最後一天，某一天你將肯定是對的。」它使我印象深刻，而自那時開始，在過去的 33 年，我每天早上看著鏡子並問自己：「如果今天是我生命的最後一天，我會想做我今天即將要做的事嗎？」而每當答案連續很多天是「不」，我便知道我需做些改變。記住我將馬上死亡是我所遇過最重要的東西來幫助我在人生裡做重大決擇，因為幾乎所有的事情 – 所有外在的期待、所有的自尊、所有對困窘及失敗的害怕 – 這些事情在死亡面前只會自動消失，僅留下真正重要的。記住你將死去是我所知道最好的方法來讓你避開你有東西會失去這個想法之陷阱。你已不受保護，沒有理由不去追隨你的內心。

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 doctors’ code for “prepare to die.” It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

大約一年前，我被診斷有癌症。我早上 7:30 做了掃描，而在我胰藏上它清楚的顯示一個腫瘤。我當時連胰臟是什麼都不知道。醫生們告訴我這幾乎確定是一種治不好的癌症，而我應預期自己將活不超過 3 到 6 個月。我的醫生建議我回家並把我的事安排好，而那是醫生「準備死亡」的代語。它意味試圖把你原本以為你有接十年要告訴你孩子的所有事情，只在幾個月內完成。 它意味確定每件事都準備妥當好讓你的家人將盡可能的容易度過。它意味說你的道別。

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 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 doctor 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, thankfully, I am fine now.

我面對那個診斷一整天，那天晚上我有個切面檢查，他們把一個內腔鏡插入我的喉嚨，通過我的胃進入我的腸子，把一根針放入我的胰臟並從腫瘤取出一些細胞。我當時被麻醉但我的太太，她當時在那，告訴我當他們在顯微鏡上看那些細胞時，醫生開始哭了，因為它被發現是一種非常罕見可經由手術治癒的胰臟癌。我動了手術，而很感謝的，我現在很好。

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s 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’s 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’s 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 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.

那是我面臨死亡過最近的時刻，而我希望在接下的幾十年裡那也會是我所遇過最近的。體驗它過後，比死亡只是一個有用但純綷理智的關念，我現在可以更確定的一點跟你說。沒有人想要死，即便想要去天堂的人也不想經由死來到達那裡，然而，死亡是我們所有人共同的宿命。沒有人曾經逃脫。而也應該就是如此，因為死亡非常可能是生命單一最好的發明。它是生命的改變劑，它把舊的清掉好為新的騰出空間。現在，你們是新的。但有一天，離現在不會太久，你將逐漸成為老的並被清掉。 抱歉如此的戲劇化，但它是相當真實的。你的時間是有限的，所以不要浪費它於過別人的生活。不要被教條給困住，也就是活於別人思考的結果中。不要讓別人意見的噪音淹沒了你自己內心的聲音，而最重要的，要有勇氣追隨你的內心及直覺。它們因某原因已經知道你真正想成為什麼。其它的事情皆是次要的。

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, 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 thirty-five years before Google came along. It was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies 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 were the words, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. 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.

在我年青時，當時有一個很棒的出版名為「完全地球編目」，那是我那個年代其中一本權威書本。它是由一位離 門洛帕克 這裡不遠，名為斯圖阿特‧布安德的老兄所創立，他詩人般的手法使它更為生動。這是在 60 年代末期，在個人電腦及桌上排版之前，所以它全是由打字機、剪刀、及拍立得相機所做。它像是 Google 出現前 35 年的 Google 平裝書。它是有理想的，充斥著簡潔的工具和偉大的想法。斯圖阿特及他的團隊發行幾期的「完全地球的編目」，然後當它已走完全程，他們發放了最後一期。那是 70 年代中期，而我是在你們的年紀。他們最後一期的封底上是一張早晨鄉村道路的照片，你若夠冒險可能會發現自己在上面搭便車的那種道路。下面的文字是：「保持飢渴，保持傻勁。」這是他們結語的告別訊息。我一直都期望自己能夠如此，而現在，在你們畢業而重頭開始時，我期望你們也能如此。保持飢渴，保持傻勁。

Thank you all, very much.

非常謝謝各位。

Article from 新民高中