Quote of the day: “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.” – Steve Jobs
Fall Day - Abandoned House
This morning I heard that Steve Jobs died and I was sad to hear the news. He was an original and made a huge impact on this world and he truly loved what he did. How cool is that? For all of my years as a software engineer, I didn’t love what I did. I didn’t hate it. Most days I found something to like in my work and I was good at it. But I didn’t love it. For years I didn’t know what I loved. I liked a lot of things. But there was no one thing that I loved, that I couldn’t not do. Then I fell in love with photography. And though I continually look back and wonder about the sanity of my choice to pursue photography, I can’t not do it. It feeds my soul. A friend of mine told me recently how lucky I am to have found what I love. She is still looking for the one thing that she couldn’t not do.
On my way home from my morning exercise class today, I heard the Steve Jobs quote above on public radio. Wow! It made me laugh and exclaim at the same time. I needed to hear this today. I’ve been in a funk all week, discouraged by minor setbacks and learnings, worrying about the future, frustrated with the whole business part of starting a photography business. When I got home, I looked up the source of the quote, Steve Jobs 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. If you have a chance, read the whole speech. You can find it here: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/10/steve-jobs-talked-about-death-in-2005-stanford-commencement-speech-2/ It’s really inspiring.
Here is the full paragraph of Steve’s inspiring quote: “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.”
More Steve Jobs inspiration: “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.”
Photos taken yesterday:
Lovingkindness Barn
Autumn Railroad Tracks
Golden Path
Autumn Scene
Colors of Fall
Red Leaves
1 Comment
mandala56 · October 6, 2011 at 5:53 pm
I confess to not having known a lot about Steve Jobs, but now his inspiring words have given me a bit more focus on my own artwork and related projects (not focusing so much on my job, hmm….)
So thanks for highlighting what he said. And your photos are beautiful!