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.
Sometimes you got to hurt something to help something. Sometimes you have to plow under one thing in order for something else to grow.
We need comprehensive immigration reform. Dr. King wouldn't be pleased at all to know that there are millions of people living in the shadow, living in fear in places like Georgia and Alabama.
ALICE She drank from a bottle called DRINK ME And she grew so tall, She ate from a plate called TASTE ME And down she shrank so small. And so she changed, while other folks Never tried nothin' at all.
Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing or a curse, a dawn or a dusk.
I believe the lasting revolution comes from deep changes in ourselves which influence our collective life.
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!
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