我很幸运，因为我在很早的时候就找到了我所热爱的事情。我在二十岁的时候和沃兹在我父母的车库里创办了苹果公司。我们努力工作，十年间，苹果公司从只有我们两个人在车库里发展到拥有超过四千名雇员、资产高达二十亿美元的大公司。在公司成立的第九年，我们发布了最好的产品，那就是麦金托什机（Macintosh）。那时我也快三十了。而在那一年，我被炒了鱿鱼。

　　I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

　　在最初的几个月里，我真是不知道该做些什么。我觉得自己辜负了与我一同创业的人。我把传给我的接力棒给弄丢了。我与戴维·帕卡德和鲍勃·诺伊斯见面，并试图为我把事情搞得糟糕透顶而向他们道歉。我败得如此之惨以至于我想要逃离硅谷。但是我逐渐明白了，我依然热爱我所做的事。苹果公司发生的这些事丝毫没能改变这一点。我被驱逐了，但我仍然有热爱的事。所以我决定从头再来。

　　I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

　　我当时没有觉察，但事后证明，从苹果公司被炒对我来说是最棒的事情。成功的沉重感被再次创业的轻松感所取代，对任何事都不是特别看重。这让我觉得非常自由，我也进入了我一生中最有创造力的阶段。

　　During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

　　在接下来的五年里，我创办了一家名为NeXT的公司，以及一家叫皮克斯的公司，并和一位后来成为我妻子的优雅女人相爱。皮克斯制作了世界上第一部用电脑制作的动画电影：（玩具总动员），现在也是世界上最成功的动画制作工作室。在后来的一系列运作中，苹果收购了Next，我又回到了苹果公司。我们在NeXT发展的技术成了苹果公司这次重新崛起的核心。我和劳伦娜也建立了美满的家庭。

　　I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.

　　我非常确定，如果我没被苹果公司开除的话，所有这一切都不会发生。这是一剂味道极苦的良药，但我想苦药利于病。有时，生活会拿起一块砖头猛拍你的脑袋，但不要失去信心。我确信惟一使我一直走下去的，就是我热爱我所做的一切。所以，一定得知道自己喜欢什么，选择爱人时如此，选择工作时同样如此。

　　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.

　　工作将是生活中的一大部分，让自己真正满意的惟一办法，是做自己认为是有意义的工作。你们如果还没有发现自己喜欢什么，那就不断地去寻找，不要急于做出决定。当你全心全意寻找时，你就会知道何时能找到。就像任何真诚的关系，随着时间的流逝，只会越来越紧密。所以继续找，直到你找到它，不要停下来！

　　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 other's 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.

　　你们的时间是有限的，所以不要按照别人的意愿去活，这是浪费时间。不要被教条所束缚，那意味着你要按照别人设想的结果而生活。不要让其他人喧嚣的观点掩盖你内心真正的声音。最重要的是，你要有勇气跟着自己感觉和直觉走。无论如何，感觉和直觉早就知道你到底想成为什么样的人，其他所有的都是次要的。