推薦答案【精彩演講】喬布斯：Three stories from my life

史蒂夫·喬布斯（1955-2011），世界著名發(fā)明家、企業(yè)家、美國(guó)蘋果公司聯(lián)合創(chuàng)辦人、前行政總裁。2011年10月5日因病逝世，享年56歲。喬布斯是改變世界的天才，他憑敏銳的觸覺和過人的智慧，勇于變革，不斷創(chuàng)新，引領(lǐng)全球資訊科技和電子產(chǎn)品的潮流，把電腦和電子產(chǎn)品變得簡(jiǎn)約化、平民化，讓曾經(jīng)是昂貴稀罕的電子產(chǎn)品變?yōu)楝F(xiàn)代人生活的一部分。

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

今天與你們一起參加世界上最好的大學(xué)之一的畢業(yè)典禮，我感到很榮幸。我從來沒有從大學(xué)畢業(yè)。說實(shí)話，這是我離大學(xué)畢業(yè)典禮最近的一次。今天我想向你們講述我生活中的三個(gè)故事。就是這樣。不是什么大不了的事情，只是三個(gè)故事而已。


The first story is about connecting the dots.

第一個(gè)故事是關(guān)于把點(diǎn)串連成線的故事

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

我在里德學(xué)院（Reed College）只讀了六個(gè)月就退學(xué)了，但是我還經(jīng)常去學(xué)校旁聽，又過了大約18個(gè)月，我才真正離開校園。那么，我為什么要退學(xué)呢?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college 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 have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course."My biological mother later found out 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 someday go to college.


這要從我出生前講起。母親懷上我時(shí)，她還是一名年輕的未婚在校研究生，于是她決定把我送給別人來收養(yǎng)。她非常強(qiáng)烈地希望我被上過大學(xué)的人收養(yǎng)，所以，我的一切都被安排好，等我一出生就由一名律師和他的妻子收養(yǎng)。哪知我剛一出世，這對(duì)夫婦突然改變了主意，他們真正想要的是一個(gè)女孩。這樣，我的養(yǎng)父母——當(dāng)時(shí)還列在登記的申請(qǐng)人名單中——突然在半夜接到了一個(gè)電話：“我們有一個(gè)不期而至的男嬰，你們想要他嗎？”他們回答道：“當(dāng)然要?！钡俏疑负髞戆l(fā)現(xiàn)，我的養(yǎng)母并沒有大學(xué)學(xué)歷，而我的養(yǎng)父甚至沒從中學(xué)畢業(yè)。她拒絕在最終的收養(yǎng)文件上簽字。但幾個(gè)月之后，我的父母承諾將來一定送我上大學(xué)，我的生母就松口了。

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively 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 how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of 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 interesting.


17年后，我真的上了大學(xué)。但是我很天真，選擇了一所幾乎和斯坦福大學(xué)一樣貴的學(xué)校，我那工薪階層的養(yǎng)父母把全部積蓄都用來支付我的大學(xué)學(xué)費(fèi)。六個(gè)月后，我看不到上大學(xué)有什么價(jià)值。我不知道自己一生中想做什么，我也不知道大學(xué)怎樣幫我找到答案。而此時(shí)，我正在花光父母一輩子攢下的錢。所以我決定退學(xué)，并且相信這是個(gè)不錯(cuò)的決定。在那時(shí)候，這樣做多少有些心里沒底，但是回過頭來看，那是我至今做出的最正確的決定之一。從我退學(xué)的那一刻起，我可以不用選學(xué)那些我不感興趣的必修課，可以去旁聽那些看上去有趣的課程。

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 5?deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 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:

那個(gè)時(shí)候并非事事如意。我沒有了宿舍，因此只能睡在朋友房間的地板上；我退還可樂瓶，換回5美分押金買東西吃；每個(gè)星期天的晚上，我總是走上七英里，穿城到哈瑞·奎師那（Hare Krishna）禮拜堂去，吃上一頓每周一次的大餐。我喜歡這樣。我憑著好奇心和直覺所做的大多數(shù)事情，結(jié)果被證明是無價(jià)之寶。讓我給你們舉一個(gè)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 sanserif 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.

那時(shí)候，里德學(xué)院開設(shè)的書法課可能是全美國(guó)最好的。校園里的所有海報(bào)、所有抽屜標(biāo)簽上的字都寫得漂漂亮亮 。由于我已經(jīng)退學(xué)，不用上常規(guī)課程，我決定選一門書法課，學(xué)學(xué)怎樣寫好字。我學(xué)習(xí)了serif（襯線字）和sanserif（非襯線字）字體，學(xué)會(huì)了根據(jù)不同的字母組合調(diào)整間距，懂得了了不起的活版印刷之所以了不起的原因。書法課真是太美妙了，具有歷史性和科學(xué)無法捕捉的藝術(shù)上的精妙，我覺得它趣味無窮。

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, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

這些對(duì)我的一生本應(yīng)該是毫無實(shí)際用處的，可是十年后，在我們?cè)O(shè)計(jì)第一臺(tái)麥金塔(Macintosh)電腦的時(shí)候，書法課上的所學(xué)全都浮現(xiàn)在我的腦海里。我們把它全部融入Mac電腦的設(shè)計(jì)之中。這是史上第一臺(tái)擁有精美字體版式的電腦。如果我在大學(xué)時(shí)期從未旁聽過那一課，Mac電腦就不會(huì)有如此豐富的字體，或是如此適當(dāng)?shù)淖煮w間距。而且，要不是Windows電腦抄襲了Mac，那么PC機(jī)很可能就不會(huì)有這么美妙的字體。如果我沒有退學(xué)，我就不會(huì)旁聽書法課，而個(gè)人電腦也可能就不會(huì)擁有如此美妙的字體了。當(dāng)然，當(dāng)時(shí)還在大學(xué)的時(shí)候不可能從這一點(diǎn)看到未來，。但十年后回首往事，一切都非常非常清晰。

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.

再次說明，你們不可能從現(xiàn)在的點(diǎn)看到未來，只有回首看時(shí)才能看清來龍去脈。因此，你要相信，這些點(diǎn)在你的未來終將連接起來。你們必須相信某種東西——你的膽識(shí)、命運(yùn)、生命、業(yè)力，等等。