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.Apple's website announces the sad news that Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs has passed away. Jobs was 56 years old, and had been struggling with complications related to pancreatic cancer over the past several years. Apple leaves the following message on their website in tribute to Jobs:
Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple. If you would like to share your thoughts, memories and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.comhttp://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-has-passed-away/
Here's a great photo and caption from an Instagram by johnniem.
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“Remember walking out once and holding the door for Steve. Said good-bye and took this picture of him walking quietly to his car as he checked his email on his iPhone.”
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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.Microsoft Cofounder Bill Gates:
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.
From Larry Magid's article Steve Jobs changed my life even before I met him nearly 30 years ago:I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.
Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.
The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.
For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.
To me, Jobs wasn’t an icon – he was a flesh and blood human being who I admired and liked but didn’t always agree with. Still, as I’ve said many times during his life,- he was a national treasure. Like the icons featured in Apple’s Think Different commercials – Gandhi, Einstein, Buckminster Fuller, and Martin Luther King – Steve Jobs was bigger than life. He looked at the world not as it was, but how it could become – and he did everything in his power to reshape the world we live in.Rare video of an Apple Think Different Ad narrated by Jobs himself:
