Connecting the dots

Every morning I wake up to my alarm clock radio. Sometimes I will hear the DJs talking or the music playing but am not yet awake and aware enough to actually grasp what is going on. This morning was one of those days.


As I faded in and out, something caught my interest. It was an excerpt from some speech, and I remember thinking--amid my groggy early-morning thoughts--that I liked what that person was saying and wanted to listen to the whole thing. But I didn't know who this person was or where that speech occurred. All I caught was the DJ saying he posted the entire thing on his blog. 


I finally managed to get out of bed, shower and get ready for the day and went to work. Later I remembered that I wanted to look up whatever that thing was that I heard this morning. At this point, I couldn't remember the message or idea, much less the words. But I remembered something had stood out and I wanted to look it up.


I found the radio website and then the DJ's blog, and then a YouTube clip of the message easily enough. The speech was that of Steve Jobs to the Stanford graduating class of 2005. Except I didn't realize it was from 2005. So when I scrolled down a few posts on this blog and saw another video tribute to the late Steve Jobs, I thought it was joke. People were pretending that Steve Jobs died. I actually listened to the speech, took notes, and started writing this blog post before I realized that it was not actually a joke. 


Steve Jobs had indeed passed away, and the posting of this video which I now learned was from 2005 had resurfaced since people were honoring the man and his life. It's probably a good thing I started writing this post before I realized this speech was something that was popping up all over the internet worlds and quotes from which were published in article after article about his life. Sharing those types of things is not something I readily like to do. 


But his words had stood out to me in a state of unawareness and even though I didn't remember what I had heard, I was motivated enough to search for that message. 


The video is embedded below but first here are the portions from the entire speech that I particularly like. 


"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."


"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."


"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."