Does it seem odd to anyone else to position Jobs as an Objectivist in line with Rand's ethics when he was avowedly a Buddhist? Not everyone who makes stuff and cares about quality control is an "ethical egoist," or whatever you call it.
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." -Mahatma Gandhi<p>If you are interested in Steve Job's philosophy of life, you may find value in learning about Stoicism.<p>> Montaigne was fond of an ancient drinking game where the members took turns holding up a painting of a corpse inside a coffin and cheered “Drink and be merry for when you’re dead you will look like this.”<p>Emotions like anxiety and fear have their roots in uncertainty and rarely in experience. Anyone who has made a big bet on themselves knows how much energy both states can consume. The solution is to do something about that ignorance. Make yourself familiar with the things, the worst-case scenarios, that you’re afraid of.<p><a href="http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101-a-practical-guide-for-entrepreneurs/" rel="nofollow">http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101...</a>
"He embraced first-handedness or independent thinking: a primary orientation not toward others’ opinions, but toward reality as you see it."<p>This is such a simple concept, but it is probably the most rarely employed thought process in all of society.<p>Original thoughts are rare and usually lucky. No reason to look down on anyone for being original - there's nothing new under the sun. Independent thinking, however, is far more rare then it has to be.
It seems wrong to me that the post doesn't apparently attribute these quotes (and they are all from the same source) to Steve Jobs' Commencement Address at Stanford in 2005, or say anything about their context.
Steve Jobs was an interesting man who led an unusual and great life, and I have a lot of respect for him for what he's done, but I don't think his "philosophy of life" is very practical for average people. By his late 20s, he was at the point of never having to work again. He <i>could</i> work for fun. This doesn't take anything away from him; he worked very hard and produced excellent products. My point is that what worked for him doesn't work for most people. If you are a person like Steve Jobs in an average position, you're looking at a string of 6- to 12-month jobs and eventual unemployment once your CV looks like Ypres.<p>Once you're independently wealthy and don't have to work anymore, it's a really great idea to de-condition yourself from social climbing and people-pleasing and all the other idiocies that enter life when one has to manage others' perceptions of oneself. In fact, it's necessary to do that if you want to do anything great; otherwise, you'll be mired in mediocrity because that's what most people like and want. But if you're a normal person who has to pay the bills, to throw all of that social stupidity to the wind is putting the cart a bit before the horse.<p>If I have kids, I'm not going to tell them to "follow their dreams" or "do what you love, and everything else will take care of itself". We don't live in a good enough world for that. It's just not practical advice.