It is not the Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, iMac, iPhone or iPad that define Steve Jobs' contribution to our lives. These are simply the by-products of Jobs' quest for beauty. In partnership with Steve Wozniak, tinkering with electronics and rudimentary software, Jobs and "the Woz" were the essence of "flower power" blossoming at the dawn of the personal computer age in the 1970s.
In his 2005 commencement address to Stanford graduates, Steve Jobs urged the graduates to follow their dreams, unfettered by the constraints of other peoples' thinking. We will not reiterate here the various paths that Jobs followed that would brighten the lives of millions of humans. Instead, let us reflect upon his own explanation of what drove him, and what we might do to find fulfillment in our own brief time on this earth:
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.
Steve Jobs, June 12, 2005
Thank you Steve.
Cross-posted to The Renaissance Post
