Last Words

Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement address at Stanford has been passed around all day today as if it contained his last dying words, and rightly so.  It's compelling stuff.  The quote that almost had me in tears at my desk was:

I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

My emotional fragility aside, it's an easy concept to read or hear and respond to with, "Yeah!  I'm going to do that!  I'm going to quit my job if it's not making me happy and devote myself to what I love!  Immediately!" But Jobs might as well have said, "あなたが好きであることをしてください" (which is allegedly "do what you love" in Japanese...but don't go getting it tattooed onto yourself or anything, because it could actually mean, "do me in the lovely bathroom").  To me, that speech was in a foreign language.  For those of us who have been raised in a "do what you have to do" world, the entire concept of doing what you love simply because you love it is extremely difficult to comprehend.  It doesn't even seem like a real option, let alone something an actual human being could do without detrimental consequences.  That's how little it registers with my life experience up until this point.  

I hate my MacBook with a passion and wish it would finish literally falling apart so I could get rid of it.  But Jobs knew what he was talking about in that speech, I think.  And I think it's time I start learning to speak the language.