評論
打印
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 how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of 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 interesting.
17年后，我真的上了大學。但是我很天真，選擇了一所幾乎和斯坦福大學一樣貴的學校，我那工薪階層的養父母把全部積蓄都用來支付我的大學學費。六個月后，我看不到上大學有什么價值。我不知道自己一生中想做什么，我也不知道大學怎樣幫我找到答案。而此時，我正在花光父母一輩子攢下的錢。所以我決定退學，并且相信這是個不錯的決定。在那時候，這樣做多少有些心里沒底，但是回過頭來看，那是我至今做出的最正確的決定之一。從我退學的那一刻起，我可以不用選學那些我不感興趣的必修課，可以去旁聽那些看上去有趣的課程。
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 5?deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 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:
那個時候并非事事如意。我沒有了宿舍，因此只能睡在朋友房間的地板上；我退還可樂瓶，換回5美分押金買東西吃；每個星期天的晚上，我總是走上七英里，穿城到哈瑞·奎師那（Hare Krishna）禮拜堂去，吃上一頓每周一次的大餐。我喜歡這樣。我憑著好奇心和直覺所做的大多數事情，結果被證明是無價之寶。讓我給你們舉一個例子：
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 san 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.
那時候，里德學院開設的書法課可能是全美國最好的。校園里的所有海報、所有抽屜標簽上的字都寫得漂漂亮亮 。由于我已經退學，不用上常規課程，我決定選一門書法課，學學怎樣寫好字。我學習了serif（襯線字）和san serif（非襯線字）字體，學會了根據不同的字母組合調整間距，懂得了了不起的活版印刷之所以了不起的原因。書法課真是太美妙了，具有歷史性和科學無法捕捉的藝術上的精妙，我覺得它趣味無窮。
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, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. 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.
這些對我的一生本應該是毫無實際用處的，可是十年后，在我們設計第一臺麥金塔(Macintosh)電腦的時候，書法課上的所學全都浮現在我的腦海里。我們把它全部融入Mac電腦的設計之中。這是史上第一臺擁有精美字體版式的電腦。如果我在大學時期從未旁聽過那一課，Mac電腦就不會有如此豐富的字體，或是如此適當的字體間距。而且，要不是Windows電腦抄襲了Mac，那么PC機很可能就不會有這么美妙的字體。如果我沒有退學，我就不會旁聽書法課，而個人電腦也可能就不會擁有如此美妙的字體了。當然，當時還在大學的時候不可能從這一點看到未來，。但十年后回首往事，一切都非常非常清晰。
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.
再次說明，你們不可能從現在的點看到未來，只有回首看時才能看清來龍去脈。因此，你要相信，這些點在你的未來終將連接起來。你們必須相信某種東西——你的膽識、命運、生命、業力，等等。
