In his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs said the following:
“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.”
As I approach my sixty-second birthday (six more than Steve Jobs ever celebrated in his all too short life), it makes me stop and think how little time I have left to make a difference.
This morning on the Today Show, they showed the famous 1984 commercial for the Macintosh. I couldn’t help but think about the juxtaposition of the death of Steve Jobs, a true original in every sense of the word, and the Occupy Wall Street crowd: the Individual vs. the Collective.
Twenty-seven years from now, Steve Jobs will still be remembered – not for following someone else’s dogma, but for marching to the beat of his own drum. We can’t all be geniuses, but we can each be the unique person we were created to be.
Someone once said, “If you want to leave footprints in the sands of time, wear work boots.” Steve Jobs did just that, and the world is a better place for it.