2012…

奪命金

A day to review his speech again.

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005
‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

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 $2 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. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

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.

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.

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 worlds 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.

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. 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.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, 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.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

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.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

荷蓮

夕陽無限好 2011

夕陽無限好 from 2006 ~ 2010

轉載：苦瓜

苦瓜　梁紀昌

17/3/2011　阮佩儀　壹周刊1097期

 

退稅上限六千，你會怎麼花？

買iPad？補貼新車首次登記稅？

更多人發動捐給鮮魚行。

做校長做到他那樣，可算城中罕有。

龔如心官司還沒完結，華懋私下籌款給他。教署殺校，官員暗自掏錢支持他……

「嘩，呢尐唔講得o架。」

能公開的，是個個叫他校長爸爸。

校長，仁愛。爸爸，慈愛。情愛？

「太太常投訴，咁鍾意學校，搬埋張床返鮮魚行（目訓）啦。」

現在逢星期二晚，陪太太學跳社交舞。

「我內柔、外剛。」

骨頭硬，跳了一年多，仍然是初班。

「不放棄，因為辦學、持家，也如跳舞，步步為營。」

他是五十六歲的鮮魚行校長梁紀昌。

他自比苦瓜，貧窮長大，同學課餘溜冰、游泳，他最多行山，「因為不用伴，更重要是不用花費。」但苦盡甘來，這經歷有助他今日幫助相同遭遇的。昔日，他有姑媽幫，仍要輟學。今日，學校有一半學生沒錢買早餐，「靠一個人，做不了太多。」他讓傳媒採訪，傳媒報導完，李嘉誠、龔中心、黎瑞恩……紛紛捐錢。

校長室的門，從來不關上。

忽然有個家長，氣急敗壞趕來－－

「校長，江湖救急。」

有一句沒一句的，掏出「無得撈啦」摺機做抵押。

手電和他的誠信，一樣不值分文。拿了六百元，即逃之夭夭。

「我早知有問題，但他兒子在這裡讀六年班。

「窮途末路，受苦的還不是孩子。」

絕境是怎樣，梁紀昌最了解。

一九六八年中一，父親肝硬化返天國。

「所謂親戚，給予的安慰是：昌仔，別讀書了，出來做事，幫手持家……

「我很反感，不支持、沒鼓勵，還一盆冷水潑過來。」

梁紀昌有一妹三弟，有個姑媽在新加坡。

「她是父親的親生姐姐，被賣掉去異鄉。」

姑媽買樓給他們，每月又送來一百斤米。

靠着姑媽支持，一家從紅磡搬去土瓜灣美景樓。

「六個人擠在三百呎，總算是有個安樂窩。」

聖斯德望小學畢業，考入聖本篤。

「窮人走的冤枉路特別多。」

家裡沒明燈。

「媽媽不知道，私立小學是沒機會參加升中試的，初中又要捱貴學費。」

靠自己摸索，中三入協同。

「專挑新校，協同當時新開，要招攬學生。」

同學有李居明。

「佢原名李康華，那時有個中史老師叫陳松齡，又名夫子，引導我們鑽研唐滌生的詞，所以，今日李居明，在支持粵劇。」

同學有閒情研究詩詞歌賦，梁紀昌課餘去打地蠟。

「爸爸打蠟，我接他的生意做。」

七二年會考，二B四D。

「大角咀銘基收我唸預科，也要輟學。」

全家等著開飯，他要幫手搵食。

日間清潔打蠟，夜晚在「東南」工專修讀電子。砌座膽機出來，是他最大貢獻。

「家裡小得無處放，學的沒用武之地，簡直是蹉跎歲月。」

大弟弟當年唸小六，他叫弟弟接手打蠟，自己去培正唸預科。

「中文中學，一年便可以考中大。」

不想耽誤弟弟學業，可惜，壓力愈大，失望愈大。

「我叻歷史，不知怎的，中史A，西史只得E。」

老師鼓勵查卷。

「查卷要錢，錢從何來？」

入不了中大，入葛量洪。

「又叫弟弟多給我兩年時間。」

七六年師範畢業，接棒持家，全力支持弟弟到利瑪竇進修。

「佢底子太差，成績追不上。」

做大哥的，內疚至今。

「人生沒完美，窮人的遺憾，也特別的多。」

一樓一
那時建築業訓練局剛成立，梁紀昌帶弟弟考大偈，預計做大偈可進修。弟弟其後進身技術員，做過海洋公園。

「佢現在和黃。經濟差，和黃裁員，佢因為考到高級文憑，得以留下。可惜無論怎發力，也考不到大專資格。」

今日，他照顧姪仔姪女。

長兄為父，梁紀昌習慣承擔。

鮮魚行兩度列入殺校名單（○四和○七年），梁紀昌拼命保著老師飯碗。

「我油塘的物業，早早供滿。八二年加入政府，當年制度，離職後直到五十五歲，都可享有長俸、退休金。我生活無憂，但老師要開飯。」

梁紀昌八二年入教署做輔導主任，後轉發展主任。

「很清楚做官的想法，收生不足，一定是校長無能，教師偷懶。

「老師被標籤，將來難搵工。」

回想兒時沒飯開，有次到佐敦平安大廈做清潔打蠟，沒錢買工具，一切靠雙手。

「廁所塞了，我徒手挖屎通渠。

「尊嚴被踐踏，至今忘不了。

「所以今日，我沒炒過一個老師，開飯最要緊。」

○二年捨棄鐵飯碗，只因睇唔上教改。

教育局推行教改，請麥當勞的要員分享心得。

「商人想法是，有指標依從，就可以倒模。

「麥當勞有四十個工序，依足便製造到一式一樣的漢堡包。

「官員忘記了，人是獨立個體。」

訪問期間，有個家長晚上七時送小孩回校，說一個多小時後接回。

「莫名奇妙？這家長做『一樓一』，孩子這樣成長，成績可以怎樣。」

又有家長，右手交孩子，左手遞上出世紙、入學證、身份證……中港婚姻，她丈夫另有家室，家長準備尋死。

「孩子日日見著這些，又豈能專心讀書？」

學生的學業成績，跟家庭收入掛鉤。

「聖保羅男女0既學生家長收入，跟我學校的，相差至少一百倍，學生的學業差距，也就相差至少一百倍。」

梁紀昌一個舊同事，女拔萃畢業。

「佢小學已經中、英、數、普，各有一個補習老師，還沒算鋼琴、芭蕾舞。

「起始點不同，要追又談何容易？」

說罷，有個舊生致電，要梁紀昌擔保遊學瑞典。女生的父親虐妻，母親寧願到街邊賣魚蛋，堅持帶兩個女兒離家，今日，女兒上中大，貸款讀書、遊學，要人擔保。

女生不守承諾，梁紀昌動輒揹十萬多元債項。仍然支持，因為他想起妹妹。

梁紀昌的妹妹梁業萍，只小學畢業。

「窮人的女兒早當災。我姑媽被賣去新加坡，我妹妹只能讀到小學。老人家認為，女兒早晚嫁人，不如儘早送出去。」

說著，有個婆婆入來。

七十五歲的陳婆婆肺鈣化，每行一條樓梯，要休息十分鐘，梁紀昌的辦公室在三樓，她苦撐半個多小時，只為叫校長提醒女生，一定要讀書，陳婆婆因為沒知識，遭丈夫拋棄。

「我妹妹的感情，也沒有著落。」

妹妹小學畢業去車衣，八九民運，車衣式微，到歐洲流浪三個多月，天天和外國人打交道。

回港後，申請半島酒店做執房，半島要求中五程度，破例獲聘，只因說得一口流利英語。

拿了傑出員工，卻礙於學歷，升不了職。

「這個社會，極嚴厲懲罰沒學歷的人。」

過三關
梁紀昌的獨生女兒凱琪，小學唸華德，小四轉天神嘉諾撒，中學唸聖瑪利。

「美國做過很大型的研究，拉丁家庭職位低，收入差，但家庭和諧，小朋友有安全感的，長大後成就也很高。

「反之，父母教育水平高，職業又高尚，但常常嘈交、嗌離婚，小孩或會吸毒，自暴自棄。」

梁紀昌在公開大學進修學位課程，工餘和太太看課外書。

「女兒耳濡目染，我不擔心她將來。」

女兒會考二B四C，在帝國大學唸化學和商業碩士。

○八年畢業，正值金融海嘯，仍獲英國公司聘用。

「女兒小時候，我常陪她看《阿信》，提醒她人生不一定順利，更會俾人屈。大方向正確，早晚有回報。」

女兒現在英國任核數師。

「我教女，只給大方向，功課要做晒，考試要合格，其他我放手。」

女兒小時候住田心邨，自己乘85B巴士放學。

「養兒育女，最緊要訓練獨立。十二歲以前，兒女屬於父母，十二歲後屬於朋友，兒女拍拖了，就屬於她愛人。」

女兒現年二十七歲，已有穩定伴侶，年多才回港一次。

「說不失落是假的。」

他借學校，重溫昔日和女兒的快樂時光。鮮魚行有二百零五個學生－－

「陸麗明、成思穎、張卓琪、陳裕寶……」

梁紀昌隨口叫出一百九十個。

在《星島》、《親子綠洲》寫專欄，稿費捐去「校長基金」，全為資助學生。

苗圃行動在尖沙咀萬麗酒店搞自助餐，讓中港學生有交流。

「對方有六、七十人，我資助鮮魚行二十個學生。」

家長一聽是酒店，不敢踏足，揚言那個世界跟自己太遙遠。

「梁紀昌管接管送，一力承擔。」

學生不懂使用刀叉，刀尖刺中牛扒，張口就吃，嚇得周梁淑怡即場教授餐桌禮儀。

「學生見識少，失禮事多。」

「校長基金」支持他們坐麗星郵輪，酒店吃餐，大學交流等。

「讓他們開眼界，有個追求目標。」

小三女生過度活躍，輕易跟同學爭執，眼淚一把鼻涕一把，衝入校長室，要梁紀昌主持公道。梁紀昌陪她看法庭電視，指導她深呼吸，以律師口吻細說事情始末，她由此學習控制情緒。

這麼一搞，已近黃昏。

又來個超齡唸小三的，父母離異，母親執垃圾為生，往年舅父從國內送上月餅、小禮品，卻車禍離世，母親又確診患乳癌。

梁紀昌教女生祈禱，女生一生沒見過、也沒錢買聖經，梁紀昌教她每晚背十個英文生字當祈禱。

一輪安撫，又是入夜。每晚回家，披星戴月。

梁紀昌的太太譚惠英，黃笏南中學畢業後入師範，二人在教職員活動結識。太太○七年吃肥雞餐退休，梁紀昌卻肩負鮮魚行校長一職。

「九九年，我和太太去西藏，看到藏傳佛教輪迴圖，那裡有個地獄島，僧人說，是給誤人子弟的。」

當年教書，只為兩餐。

「在教署當督學，名校校長敬我萬分。我問自己，是自己有料抑或招牌夠照？」

鮮魚行經歷兩次殺校，仍然屹立不倒。

「應該不用下地獄。」

教署規定，六十歲退休。

「我屬羊，今年五十六。」

梁紀昌媽媽，今年八十三。

「似媽媽的話，退休後至少有二十三年陪太太。」

他說人生有三大不幸：少年得志、中年頹廢、年老入花叢。

「我一生有很多難關，願有智慧過三關，老來便可陪太太環遊世界。」