Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

The single best motivator for me is remembering that I'm going to die one day. I think often about the commencement speech Steve Jobs made in 2005. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. Here's a link: [this video] I still allow myself time to relax/slack off, but if I had intended to only watch a few episodes before getting down to working on something I'm passionate about, and then have the urge to just do the easy thing and keep watching instead of doing whatever I'd planned to do, I remember that my time is slowly running out and if I don't take steps to achieve my dreams now, then I will likely never achieve them before there's no time left. This applies to everything in life, not just work. Travel, falling in love, learning new things--you name it--everything is affected by how limited your time is. Time and your body (there's a direct relationship between them) are the most limited resources you have, and even if you strike it rich you can never rewind the clock. This is what motivates me more than anything else to get shit done. On a related note, once you realize just how limited your time is, you realize how pointless it is to live your life for other people or be constrained by dogma. Anyway, at this point I'm just rehashing the speech, and Jobs says all this much better than I do. If you haven't seen it yet, go watch it. If you have seen it, go watch it again and listen very carefully to what he says.

Cool, I will just simply tell you my opinion, in the end it is you who should make the decision, for me school is for people who don't have imagination and courage to learn by themselves. But in early age and with lack of experience it is easy to get carried away and take the wrong direction. If you already found your passion and you are sure that whatever is it, it is what you want to do for next few years of your life. Take the 6 months off and go explore in that direction and see what you get. Otherwise if you are not sure yet, stay in school and try to find what you like to do, you still have long way and if the next 6 months are not them, be patient sooner or later you will find what you like to do. Then everything is going to be clear. Explore and try to meet people and talk to them whether in school or off school. Check this video: [this video] Good Luck.

Your life is essentially a series of experiences unfolding in ways you are likely to never predict with any reasonable degree of accuracy. Steve Job's graduation commencement speech touches on this idea of being unable to "connect the dots in your life" forward, one can only do it retrospectively. It is a keen observation and is certainly worth listening to: [this video] Try and minimize the amount of time you let your mind spend regretting a decision you made in March and focus more on looking forward and taking the next positive step in your life. You are only 20 and are bound to make many more decisions that you may consider to be a mistake in the short-term, but you have no idea how your life will ultimately unfold. What you once considered to be a mistake could turn out to be a great decision, even if it only serves the purpose of teaching you some lessons to grow yourself further. Kudos on your bravery to take a risk, I'm sorry to hear it isn't working out at the moment but I assure you it is totally within your domain of influence to change things around for yourself and realize new opportunities. Just take it one step at a time and try and frame the experience as simply an opportunity to grow through a challenge. I read edw519's comment and he is certainly right, we do care and things are never as bad as they may seem.

You shouldn't deny your curiosities, because you never know what they'll lead to. Steve Jobs once dropped in on a Calligraphy class, and fell in love with beautiful typography. It had no practical purpose to him at the time, but later in life, when he was building the Mac, he built that beautiful typography into it, changing computers into a design tool.* Taking time to play the piano will help you relax and think more creatively. Additionally, as your mind makes connections between notes and identifies patterns, it will find parallels in the challenges you face in your startup. *Story from Jobs's Stanford Commencement Address: [this video]