Find Happiness, "Don't Settle"- Steve Jobs

"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith." 

- Steve Jobs

Steve holding an iPhone 4 in 2010.
Source: Wikipedia

The entrepeneur, innovator, and artist Steve Jobs died yesterday. The world has lost a great person. I obviously never met him, but as an observer, what I always appreciated about Steve are his drive for perfection, unconventionality, and his down-to-earth personality. These attributes led to high-quality products that changed the world. I do not believe that is an exaggeration.

A few years ago, I was forwarded the text to his now famous 2005 commencement address for Stanford. Now that he is gone, people are quoting it in the media, and I read it again. There are some great statements in there about Steve's view of life that really ring true for me.

I also was inspired by the part where he talks about dealing with loss after being ousted from the company he founded:

"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 can relate to this sort of loss and humiliation. It's not like something was missing from my life, it is that my life didn't even seem to resemble what it once was. I had somehow skipped to a parallel universe of misery.

"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."

I don't know if this divorce is "the best thing that could have ever happened to me," but I do know that we don't always understand the reason that things happen while we are in the midst of them. Perhaps, someday, I will look back and see the reason behind this and how it all fits into the overall plan. Right now, I am experiencing that feeling of "being a beginner again, less sure about everything." It is uncomfortable in some aspects, but in others, it is liberating. It feels strange that anything good can come out of divorce, or any kind of loss; It is a time of rediscovery and growth for myself. I have accomplished things I had never imagined before.

Steve encouraged the graduates to strive for work and relationships (life) that will fulfill them. "If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." I love how Steve actually says, "don't settle," twice. It's important enough to keep striving for, and when one encounters problems on the way one must press on.

I know that inner peace is out there for me, and I won't give up. I have a fighting spirit that won't be kept down for long.