I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation – the Macintosh – a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired.
我很幸運，因為我在很早的時候就找到了我所熱愛的事情。我在二十歲的時候和沃茲在我父母的車庫里創辦了蘋果公司。我們努力工作，十年間，蘋果公司從只有我們兩個人在車庫里發展到擁有超過四千名雇員、資產高達二十億美元的大公司。在公司成立的第九年，我們發布了最好的產品，那就是麥金托什機（Macintosh）。那時我也快三十了。而在那一年，我被炒了魷魚。
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
在最初的幾個月里，我真是不知道該做些什么。我覺得自己辜負了與我一同創業的人。我把傳給我的接力棒給弄丟了。我與戴維·帕卡德和鮑勃·諾伊斯見面，并試圖為我把事情搞得糟糕透頂而向他們道歉。我敗得如此之慘以至于我想要逃離硅谷。但是我逐漸明白了，我依然熱愛我所做的事。蘋果公司發生的這些事絲毫沒能改變這一點。我被驅逐了，但我仍然有熱愛的事。所以我決定從頭再來。

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
我當時沒有覺察，但事后證明，從蘋果公司被炒對我來說是最棒的事情。成功的沉重感被再次創業的輕松感所取代，對任何事都不是特別看重。這讓我覺得非常自由，我也進入了我一生中最有創造力的階段。
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
在接下來的五年里，我創辦了一家名為NeXT的公司，以及一家叫皮克斯的公司，并和一位后來成為我妻子的優雅女人相愛。皮克斯制作了世界上第一部用電腦制作的動畫電影：（玩具總動員），現在也是世界上最成功的動畫制作工作室。在后來的一系列運作中，蘋果收購了Next，我又回到了蘋果公司。我們在NeXT發展的技術成了蘋果公司這次重新崛起的核心。我和勞倫娜也建立了美滿的家庭。
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.
我非常確定，如果我沒被蘋果公司開除的話，所有這一切都不會發生。這是一劑味道極苦的良藥，但我想苦藥利于病。有時，生活會拿起一塊磚頭猛拍你的腦袋，但不要失去信心。我確信惟一使我一直走下去的，就是我熱愛我所做的一切。所以，一定得知道自己喜歡什么，選擇愛人時如此，選擇工作時同樣如此。
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
工作將是生活中的一大部分，讓自己真正滿意的惟一辦法，是做自己認為是有意義的工作。你們如果還沒有發現自己喜歡什么，那就不斷地去尋找，不要急于做出決定。當你全心全意尋找時，你就會知道何時能找到。就像任何真誠的關系，隨著時間的流逝，只會越來越緊密。所以繼續找，直到你找到它，不要停下來！
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 other's 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.
你們的時間是有限的，所以不要按照別人的意愿去活，這是浪費時間。不要被教條所束縛，那意味著你要按照別人設想的結果而生活。不要讓其他人喧囂的觀點掩蓋你內心真正的聲音。最重要的是，你要有勇氣跟著自己感覺和直覺走。無論如何，感覺和直覺早就知道你到底想成為什么樣的人，其他所有的都是次要的。