About a month ago, I started a draft post about Apple founder Steve Jobs. It was a reaction to an observation by a law professor about waiting for the Steve Jobs of law.
You can see the draft title in my WordPress dashboard:
Other subjects took priority in the meantime (including technology of all things). I returned to it today, but for some reason it didn’t feel right.
Then an hour ago, I saw the sad yet not unexpected news that Mr. Jobs had died. His family issued a press release thanking those who offered support during his illness and asking for privacy during their time of grief.
So I will push this subject further down the road.
Many people have seen his commencement speech at Stanford in 2005. In it, he spoke honestly and bravely about his cancer diagnosis and mortality. The text of his speech contained words that encouraged the graduates with his own form of inventive optimism:
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.
Steve Jobs was adopted, a college drop-out and was fired from the company he founded by the man he brought in to help him run it. He followed his heart and returned, and while battling a rare and likely terminal illness, lead a team that developed the iPhone and iPad.
I’d call that courageous.
(source)