"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
The world is mourning the death of Steve Jobs, and I think that it is important for us all to remember one of the great innovators of our time. He was crazy enough to think that he was able to change the world, and he set out to do just that.
I was so impressed by a commencement address he made in 2005 at Stanford University. If you haven't had the opportunity to watch it, you should. In his speech, he had some wonderful advice to new graduates and job seekers. He talked openly about his personal failures. He very candidly talked about what it felt like to achieve success and how devastating it was to be a complete failure.
He talked about how he got fired from Apple, lost almost everything and seriously considered leaving Silicon Valley entirely. Although it was a devastating blow to him, both personally and professionally, from that failure he was able to achieve something even better than he had ever imagined.
From the ashes of that failure, he was able to rebuild and explore new opportunities. Even though he eventually found his way back to Apple, he had found his passion all over again. I was touched by his viewpoint that it is the small moments in life that shape our destiny, even if we can't see it at the time.
Steve explained that it was these moments, these dots, that are the real things that matter. The problem is that you can't connect the dots going forward, but rather you can only connect them backwards. Even when it feels like we have lost everything, have failed miserably, we have to trust that it will all make sense at some future point. We just have to keep going.
In his commencement address, he talked about how we are all going to die, and that by accepting this and knowing how short our lives are, we should never settle for doing something we aren't passionate about. We are only in this world for a short time and we don't have time to waste living someone else's life.
These are great words, and for anyone who is struggling through job loss and trying to find their passion, it's great advice.
Here is one of my favorite quotes:
"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. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ... Stay hungry. Stay foolish."
I can only hope that we all stay hungry and stay foolish.
By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for PhillyJobsBlog and Beyond.com, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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