This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs， CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios， delivered on June 12， 2005.這是蘋果電腦公司兼皮克斯動(dòng)畫公司的CEO史蒂夫。喬布斯于2005年6月12日在斯坦佛大學(xué)畢業(yè)典禮上作的極富啟發(fā)意義的演講。

    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？

    在呆了六個(gè)月之后，我便從里德學(xué)院輟學(xué)了，但在那之后，我以旁聽者的身份在學(xué)院里又呆了18個(gè)月才真正離開大學(xué)。那么，我為什么要輟學(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.話還要從我出生之前說起。我的生母是一個(gè)年輕的未婚大學(xué)畢業(yè)生，她決定把我送去別人家收養(yǎng)，并堅(jiān)持認(rèn)為，收養(yǎng)我的人必須是大學(xué)畢業(yè)生。在我出生前，所有關(guān)于收養(yǎng)我的事宜都已經(jīng)安排妥當(dāng)了。我本該被一個(gè)律師和他的妻子收養(yǎng)，但等到我真正出生了，他和他的妻子卻在最后時(shí)刻決定他們真正想要的是個(gè)女孩。所以，我現(xiàn)在的養(yǎng)父母（他們當(dāng)時(shí)在等候名單上）在半夜接到一通電話，“我們有一個(gè)意外出生的男孩，你們想收養(yǎng)他嗎？”他們回答說，“當(dāng)然想。”但后來，我的生母發(fā)現(xiàn)了我的養(yǎng)母不是大學(xué)畢業(yè)生，而我的養(yǎng)父甚至連高中都沒有畢業(yè)，于是她拒絕在最終的收養(yǎng)文件上簽字。幾個(gè)月后，她才最后妥協(xié)了，因?yàn)槲业酿B(yǎng)父母保證以后會(huì)送我去上大學(xué)。

    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.十七年過去了，我真地上了大學(xué)。但我卻很天真地挑了一個(gè)和斯坦福大學(xué)一樣學(xué)費(fèi)昂貴的學(xué)校，光是學(xué)費(fèi)就花掉了我養(yǎng)父母辛辛苦苦積攢多年的積蓄，他們只是工薪階層。在學(xué)校待了六個(gè)月后，我看不出這學(xué)費(fèi)花得值得。我不知道我的人生計(jì)劃是什么，也不知道大學(xué)能夠如何幫助我找到這一目標(biāo)。而且，我在學(xué)校念書會(huì)花掉養(yǎng)父母一生的積蓄。于是，我決定輟學(xué)，并堅(jiān)信這是一個(gè)正確的決定。當(dāng)時(shí)，這是一個(gè)相當(dāng)冒險(xiǎn)的舉動(dòng)，但今天回頭看看，那是我做出的最明智的決定之一。輟學(xué)之后，我馬上逃離了那些我對(duì)之乏味的課程，轉(zhuǎn)而開始旁聽那些看起來很有趣的科目。

    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：但事情也并非全是美好的。輟學(xué)后我就沒有寢室了，因此，我睡在朋友房間的地板上。為了有錢吃飯，我把可樂瓶子退回商店，只為了那5美分的押金，每周星期天晚上，為了吃一頓好的大餐，我還要走7英里的路，到城鎮(zhèn)另一頭的印度哈而克利須那寺。但我熱愛這種生活。而且，許多我出于好奇和直覺而偶然去做的事，后來也變證明是非常值得的。我來為你們舉一個(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 san 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.當(dāng)時(shí)，里德學(xué)院提供的恐怕是全國(guó)最棒的書法教育。走在校園里，每一幅貼在墻上的海報(bào)，每一張抽屜上的標(biāo)簽，都是漂漂亮亮的手寫體。由于我輟了學(xué)，不用再去上常規(guī)課程，我便決定報(bào)名參加書法班，學(xué)寫一手漂亮的字。在班里，我學(xué)到了燈芯體和襯線體，在不同字母組合間的間隙的變化，以及如何才能讓印刷字體美觀。那種美妙、古樸、藝術(shù)、微妙，是科學(xué)所不能達(dá)到的。我對(duì)之著了迷。

    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， 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.在當(dāng)時(shí)看來，這些事物仿佛于我的人生沒有任何實(shí)際的應(yīng)用。但十年之后，我在設(shè)計(jì)第一臺(tái)蘋果電腦時(shí)，它們都重新浮現(xiàn)在我的腦海里，我們?cè)谠O(shè)計(jì)電腦時(shí)好好地運(yùn)用了它們，使我們的蘋果電腦成為了第一臺(tái)精致排版的電腦。如果我當(dāng)時(shí)沒有去旁聽書法班，蘋果電腦就不會(huì)有多字體選擇，字母間也不會(huì)有勻稱的間隙。而且，由于Windows系統(tǒng)是借鑒了Mac系統(tǒng)的產(chǎn)物，如今所有的個(gè)人電腦都沒有多字體選擇和美妙的字母間隙，這也是有可能的。這些事情就像一個(gè)一個(gè)的點(diǎn)。當(dāng)我還在學(xué)校時(shí)，是不可能看得出這些未來的來龍去脈的。但十年之后，再回頭來看，一切就很明顯了。

    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. This approach has never let me down， and it has made all the difference in my life.你們也是一樣，現(xiàn)在要將未來看透是不可能的，只有在將來，事物間的聯(lián)系才會(huì)顯現(xiàn)出來。因此，你們必須要相信，現(xiàn)在所學(xué)的東西總是能與未來聯(lián)系起來的。而且，你們還得堅(jiān)信一種東西，不管是直覺也好，命運(yùn)也罷，甚至人生，或是因果循環(huán)，無論什么都好。我的這種信仰從來沒有讓我失望，我的生命中的所有轉(zhuǎn)折都是它造成的。