When Steve Jobs retirement at apple was announced, it came as a big news item for many of us. Yet it did not take most of us with complete surprise as Steve had taken extended leave of absence in the past and so it was inevitable that he would retire someday.
As someone who has admired the technology and innovations that apple has brought into this world under Steve job’s guidance there is a little sadness in this news for me as the difference that his leadership has made is tremendous.
Even with all his technology achivements, my mind was drawn to a commencement speech that Steve Job’s had delivered at Stanford in which – he quoted that “if you live everyday as if it was your last, then one day you will be right” – he then went on to say that “death is probably the biggest invention that pushes forward innovation, it recycles the old and makes room for the new”.
I personally have not experienced death very closely other than a couple of moments of extreme danger in my life (and it was not a deliberate thing like a roller coaster ride or jumping out of a plane), and yet I think that there is something very profound in what Steve Jobs is saying here. In a manner of looking death is an end of a lifetime. An experience that leaves the ones left behind in grief and sadness. It is so distressing to think about that most of us avoid talking about it and definitely do not spend a lot of time thinking about our own death.
Many things end in life and yet are not really all that distressing to us. I know that this day will come to an end soon and I am OK with it because I know that tomorrow will be yet another day – a new beginning. The thing that makes death so scary is that we look upon it as a “final ending”, a point from which there is no return.
The question is how do we accept the fact that everything in the material world is destined to end one day and death is a part of natures perfection.
In his commencement speech Steve Jobs provided a great way to make death a useful concept, he said “I ask myself, if this was my last day on earth, is what i am going to do today the thing that I would like to do on my last day? And if my answer is no on many days in a row then I know that i have to change something in my life”. Amazing thought – looking at death to remind us how precious this life is and how life can truly be made meaningful with the knowing that we our time on this earth is short and it is best to make use of our present moment.
With a knowing that death is a reminder that our life is precious. May each and everyone of us live our days to the fullest and in the knowing that in embracing life we make it easy to embrace death as a fitting ending to a life well lived.
