For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Interpretation
The quote urges self-reflection on one's daily actions in relation to life's purpose.
Steve Jobs emphasizes the importance of evaluating one's daily choices against the backdrop of life's brevity. By asking himself if he would want to do what he has planned for the day, he reinforces the notion that if the answer is often 'no', it signals a need for change, prompting a proactive approach to living a fulfilling and meaningful life.
In practice
In a motivational speech on personal development.
Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.
It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.
The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
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.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
A challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence... There is no doubt that the time to act is now.
It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws.
We cannot take for granted that the future will be better, and that means we need to work to create it today.
Look, you see those groups talkin' about negativity and anger, and they'd do that for two albums, and then you'd see them change up. I knew they couldn't do a Kurt Cobain on their whole career. You can't stay like that all the time. It's like when Hammer tried to go gangster. You can't be something that you're not.
Rwanda has emerged from the devastation of genocide and become more secure and prosperous than anyone had a right to expect.
A universal renunciation of violence requires the commitment of the whole of society. These are not matters of government but matters of State; not only matters for the authoirities, but for society in its entirety, including civilian, military, and religious bodies. The mobilization which is urgently needed to effect the transition within two or three years from a culture of war to a culture of peace demands co-operation from everyone. In order to change, the world needs everyone.
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