I was at a soccer game tonight - using my iPhone 4 - when I heard of the news. I just could not pay much attention to the game. I kept checking my twitter and my facebook pages to see the tributes and the "#RIPSteveJobs" go across my iPhone.
My first computer at school was the Apple IIc in 1985. I was completely amazed about what I was seeing on that screen and this thing that they called a "mouse." Our first Mac at home was from the PowerPC series. And, I remember trying to fix some problems, and how happy I was trying to work through that stuff - I was in Junior High at the time.
Agree or disagree with the guy or how he ran his business, something I really respected about Jobs (I still can't believe I'm talking in the past tense) - something I respected is that he was always passionate about what he believed in.
That will be one lesson that I will take from his life - Be passionate in what you believe in. Another lesson for me to take from his life is this - Always be a visionary and don't care what anyone else thinks. Below is a commencement speech given at Stanford University in 2005 (as of this second, there have been 4 million hits on this video). Here is a quote:
"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."