喬布斯在斯坦福大學的中英文演講稿

這裏給大家抓取英文演講稿中的一個故事，讓我們在閱讀中體味生活的智慧。

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 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.

十七年後，我上大學了，但是我很無知地選了一所差不多和斯坦福一樣貴的學校，幾乎花掉我那藍領階層養父母一生的積蓄。六個月後，我覺得不值得。我看不出自己以後要做什麼，也不曉得大學會怎樣幫我指點迷津，而我卻在花銷父母一生的積蓄。所以我決定退學，並且相信沒有做錯。一開始非常嚇人，但回憶起來，這卻是我一生中作的最好的決定之一。從我退學的那一刻起，我可以停止一切不感興趣的必修課，開始旁聽那些有意思得多的課。

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.

事情並不那麼美好。我沒有宿舍可住，睡在朋友房間的地上。爲了吃飯，我收集五分一個的舊可樂瓶，每個星期天晚上步行七英里到哈爾-克里什納廟裏改善一下一週的伙食。我喜歡這種生活方式。能夠遵循自己的好奇和直覺前行後來被證明是多麼的珍貴。讓我來給你們舉個例子吧。

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.

當時的裏德大學提供可能是全國最好的書法指導。校園中每一張海報，抽屜上的每一張標籤，都是漂亮的手寫體。由於我已退學，不用修那些必修課，我決定選一門書法課上上。在這門課上，我學會了“serif”和"sans-serif"兩種字體、學會了怎樣在不同的字母組合中改變字間距、學會了怎樣寫出好的字來。這是一種科學無法捕捉的微妙，楚楚動人、充滿歷史底蘊和藝術性，我覺得自己被完全吸引了。

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.

當時我並不指望書法在以後的生活中能有什麼實用價值。但是，十年之後，我們在設計第一臺 Macintosh計算機時，它一下子浮現在我眼前。於是，我們把這些東西全都設計進了計算機中。這是第一臺有這麼漂亮的文字版式的計算機。要不是我當初在大學裏偶然選了這麼一門課，Macintosh計算機絕不會有那麼多種印刷字體或間距安排合理的字號。要不是Windows照搬了 Macintosh，個人電腦可能不會有這些字體和字號。

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

要不是退了學，我決不會碰巧選了這門書法課，個人電腦也可能不會有現在這些漂亮的版式了。 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. 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，我在大學裏不可能從這一點上看到它與將來的關係。十年之後再回頭看，兩者之間關係就非常、非常清楚了。你們同樣不可能從現在這個點上看到將來;只有回頭看時，纔會發現它們之間的關係。所以你必須相信，那些點點滴滴，會在你未來的生命裏，以某種方式串聯起來。你必須相信一些東西——你的勇氣、宿命、生活、因緣，隨便什麼——因爲相信這些點滴能夠一路連接會給你帶來循從本覺的自信，它使你遠離平凡，變得與衆不同。

喬布斯的畢業典禮的演講稿中講述了自己從小從被抱養到輟學，學了學無所用的書寫藝術課程，最終這些人生軌跡都結合在一起形成了獨一無二的個體——喬布斯。