In his recent speech at Stanford University, Steve Jobs encouraged the graduates to view life’s setbacks, even death, as opportunities for greater things. Granted, our future may not shine as brightly as his multi-million empire, but we are definitely successes in our very own right – if we can truthfully and confidently say we are.

In the three stories he shared, he brought up three main points:

1. Connecting the Dots
Remember those picture books where drawing lines will get you a pretty flower at the end of the activity? Life is somewhat like that! Penciling in a line from one dot to another is just like sitting through a seemingly irrelevant module in school – there appears to be no purpose. In his speech, Steve Jobs’ point was that we can only see the purpose behind connecting the dots when we look backward! So one of the direct takeaways is that we should never discredit what we are learning, and be patient in reaping the fruits of our labor.

2. Love and loss
A phrase I hold dear to my heart is “To love is to let go”. Steve Jobs acknowledged the beauty of him being losing his Apple job when it gave him the opportunity to set up Pixar, meet his wife, amongst others. Even in his disappointment, he realized that what kept him going was that he loved what he did – and letting go of Apple, albeit temporarily, opened many other doors for him to greater pursue his passion! With regard to your work, hobbies, choices in life – are you loving it?

3. Live each day as if it is your last
This is nothing new, I’m sure many of us have heard this so many times that it has almost become white noise that our ears block out. However, truly internalizing this gem of wisdom is another story. Often, it takes a near-death experience or loss of a loved one for us to realize the scarcity of time, or the fragility of life. So right now, don’t let life pass you by. To be morbid, we’ll never know when we’ll go, so carpe diem!

Just some food for thought, Steve Jobs’ parting words:
“Stay hungry, stay foolish”

-stella