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[Music]
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thank you
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I'm honored to be with you today for
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your commencement from one of the finest
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universities in the world truth be told
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I never graduated from college and this
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is the closest I've ever gotten to a
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college graduation today I want to tell
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you three stories from my life that's it
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no big deal
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just three stories the first story is
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about connecting the dots I dropped out
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of Reed College after the first six
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months but then stayed around as a drop
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in for another 18 months or so before I
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really quit so why did I drop out it
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started before I was born my biological
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mother was a young unwed graduate
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student and she decided to put me up for
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adoption she felt very strongly that I
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should be adopted by college graduates
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so everything was all set for me to be
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adopted at Birth by a lawyer and his
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wife except that when I popped out they
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decided at the last minute that they
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really wanted a girl so my parents who
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were on a waiting list got a call in the
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middle of the night asking we've got an
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unexpected baby boy do you want him they
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said of course my biological mother
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found out later that my mother had never
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graduated from college and that my
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father had never graduated from high
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school she refused to sign the final
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adoption papers she only relented a few
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months later when my parents promised
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that I would go to college this was the
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start in my life and 17 years later I
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did go to college but I naively chose a
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college that was almost as expensive as
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Stanford and all of my working-class
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parents savings were being spent on Mike
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tuition after six months I couldn't see
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the value in it I had no idea what I
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wanted to do with my life and no idea
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how college was going to help me figure
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it out and here I was spending all the
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money my parents had saved their entire
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life so I decided to drop out and trust
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that it would all work out okay
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it was pretty scary at the time but
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looking back it was one of the best
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decisions I ever made the minute I
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dropped out I could stop taking the
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required classes that didn't interest me
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and begin dropping in on the ones that
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looked far more interesting it wasn't
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all romantic I didn't have a dorm room
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so I slept on the floor in friends rooms
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I returned coke bottles for the five
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cent deposits to buy food with and I
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would walk the seven miles across town
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every Sunday night to get one good meal
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a week at the Hari Krishna temple I
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loved it and much of what I stumbled
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into by following my curiosity and
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intuition turned out to be priceless
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later on let me give you one example
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Reed College at that time offered
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perhaps the best calligraphy instruction
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in the country throughout the campus
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every poster every label on every drawer
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was beautifully hand calligraphed
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because I had dropped out and didn't
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have to take the normal classes I
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decided to take a calligraphy class to
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learn how to do this I learned about
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serif and sans-serif typefaces about
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varying the amount of space between
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different letter combinations about what
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makes great typography great it was
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beautiful historical artistically subtle
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in a way that science can't capture and
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I found it fascinating none of this had
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even a hope of any practical application
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in my life but ten years later when we
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were designing the first Macintosh
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computer it all came back to me and we
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designed it all into the Mac it was the
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first computer with beautiful typography
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if I had never dropped in on that single
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course in college the Mac would have
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never had multiple typefaces or
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proportionally spaced fonts
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and since windows just copied the Mac
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it's likely that no personal computer
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would have them if I had never dropped
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out I would have never dropped in on
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that calligraphy class and personal
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computers might not have the wonderful
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typography that they do of course it was
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impossible to connect the dots looking
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forward when I was in college but it was
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very very clear looking backwards ten
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years later again you can't connect the
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dots looking forward you can only
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connect them looking backwards so you
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have to trust that the dots will somehow
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connect in your future you have to trust
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in something your gut destiny life karma
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whatever because believing that the dots
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will connect down the road will give you
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the confidence to follow your heart even
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when it leads you off the well-worn path
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and that will make all the difference my
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second story is about love and loss I
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was lucky I found what I loved to do
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early in life woz and I started Apple in
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my parent's garage when I was 20 we
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worked hard and in 10 years Apple had
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grown from just the two of us in a
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garage into a two billion dollar company
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with over 4,000 employees we just
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released our finest creation the
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Macintosh a year earlier and I just
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turned 30 and then I got fired how can
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you get fired from a company you've
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started well as Apple grew we hired
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someone who I thought was very talented
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to run the company with me and for the
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first year or so things went well but
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then our visions of the future began to
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diverge and eventually we had a falling
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out when we did our Board of Directors
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sided with him and so at 30 I was out
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and very publicly out what had been the
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focus of my entire adult life was gone
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and it was devastating I really didn't
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know what to do for a few months I felt
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that I had let the previous generation
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of entrepreneurs down that I had dropped
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the baton as it was being passed to me
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I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce
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and tried to apologize for screwing up
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so badly I was a very public failure and
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I even thought about running away from
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the valley but something slowly began to
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dawn on me I still loved what I did the
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turn of events at Apple had not changed
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that one bit
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I'd been rejected but I was still in
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love and so I decided to start over I
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didn't see it then but it turned out
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that getting fired from Apple was the
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best thing that could have ever happened
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to me the heaviness of being successful
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was replaced by the lightness of being a
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beginner again less sure about
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everything it freed me to enter one of
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the most creative periods of my life
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during the next five years I started a
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company named next another company named
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Pixar and fell in love with an amazing
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woman who would become my wife Pixar
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went on to create the world's first
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computer animated feature film Toy Story
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and is now the most successful animation
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studio in the world in a remarkable turn
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of events Apple bought next and I
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returned to Apple and the technology we
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developed it next is at the heart of
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Apple's current Renaissance and Laureen
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and I have a wonderful family together
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I'm pretty sure none of this would have
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happened if I hadn't been fired from
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Apple it was awful tasting medicine but
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I guess the patient needed it
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[Applause]
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my third story is about death when I was
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17 I read a quote that went something
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like if you live each day as if it was
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your last someday you'll most certainly
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be right it made an impression on me and
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since then for the past 33 years I've
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looked in the mirror every morning and
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asked myself if today were the last day
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of my life what I want to do what I am
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about to do today and whenever the
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answer has been no for too many days in
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a row I know I need to change something
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remembering that all be dead soon is the
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most important tool I've ever
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encountered to help me make the big
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choices in life because almost
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everything all external expectations all
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pride all fear of embarrassment or
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failure these things just fall away in
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the face of death leaving only what is
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truly important remembering that you are
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going to die is the best way I know to
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avoid the trap of thinking you have
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something to lose you are already naked
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there is no reason not to follow your
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heart about a year ago I was diagnosed
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with cancer I had a scan at 7:30 in the
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morning
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and it clearly showed a tumor on my
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pancreas I didn't even know what a
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pancreas was the doctors told me this
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was almost certainly a type of cancer
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that is incurable and that I should
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expect to live no longer than three to
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six months my doctor advised me to go
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home and get my affairs in order which
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is doctors code for prepare to die it
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means to try and tell your kids
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everything you thought you'd have the
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next 10 years to tell them in just a few
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months it means to make sure everything
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is buttoned up so that will be as easy
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as possible for your family it means to
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say your goodbyes
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I live with that diagnosis all day later
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that evening I had a biopsy where they
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stuck an endoscope down my throat
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through my stomach and into my
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intestines put a needle into my pancreas
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and got a few cells from the tumor
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I was sedated but my wife who was there
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told me that when they viewed the cells
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under a microscope the doctor started
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crying because it turned out to be a
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very rare form of pancreatic cancer that
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is curable with surgery I had the
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surgery and thankfully I'm fine now
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[Applause]
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this was the closest I've been to facing
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death and I hope it's the closest I get
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for a few more decades having lived
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through it I can now say this to you
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with a bit more certainty than when
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death was a useful but purely
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intellectual concept no one wants to die
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even people who want to go to heaven
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don't want to die to get there
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and yet death is the destination we all
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share no one has ever escaped it and
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that is as it should be because death is
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very likely the single best invention of
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life its life's change agent it clears
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out the old to make way for the new
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right now the new is you but some day
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not too long from now you will gradually
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become the old and be cleared away sorry
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to be so dramatic but it's quite true
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your time is limited so don't waste it
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living someone else's life
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don't be trapped by Dogma which is
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living with the results of other
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people's thinking don't let the noise of
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others opinions drown out your own inner
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voice and most important have the
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courage to follow your heart and
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intuition they somehow already know what
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you truly want to become everything else
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is secondary
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when I was young there was an amazing
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publication called the Whole Earth
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Catalog which was one of the Bible's of
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my generation it was created by a fellow
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named Stuart brand not far from here in
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Menlo Park and he brought it to life
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with his poetic touch this was in the
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late 60s before personal computers and
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desktop publishing so it was all made
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with typewriters scissors and Polaroid
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cameras it was sort of like Google and
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paperback form 35 years before Google
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came along it was idealistic overflowing
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with neat tools and great notions Stuart
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and his team put out several issues of
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the Whole Earth Catalog and then when it
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had run its course they put out a final
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issue
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it was the mid-1970s and I was your age
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on the back cover of their final issue
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was a photograph of an early-morning
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country road the kind you might find
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yourself hitchhiking on if you were so
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adventurous beneath it were the words
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stay hungry stay foolish it was their
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farewell message as they signed off stay
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hungry stay foolish and I have always
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wished that for myself and now as you
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graduate to begin anew I wish that for
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you stay hungry stay foolish thank you
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all very much
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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you
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