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I am honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college. And this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

今天，有榮幸來到各位從世界上最好的學(xué)校之一畢業(yè)的畢業(yè)典禮上。我從來沒從大學(xué)畢業(yè)。說實話，這是我離大學(xué)畢業(yè)最近的一刻。今天，我只說三個故事，不談大道理，三個故事就好。

The first story is about connecting the dots.

第一個故事，是關(guān)于人生中的點點滴滴怎么串連在一起。

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

我在里德學(xué)院(Reed college)待了六個月就辦休學(xué)了。到我退學(xué)前，一共休學(xué)了十八個月。那么，我為什么休學(xué)?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.

這得從我出生前講起。我的親生母親當(dāng)時是個研究生，年輕未婚媽媽，她決定讓別人收養(yǎng)我。她強(qiáng)烈覺得應(yīng)該讓有大學(xué)畢業(yè)的人收養(yǎng)我，所以我出生時，她就準(zhǔn)備讓我被一對律師夫婦收養(yǎng)。但是這對夫妻到了最后一刻反悔了，他們想收養(yǎng)女孩。

So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. This was the start in my life.

所以在等待收養(yǎng)名單上的一對夫妻，我的養(yǎng)父母，在一天半夜里接到一通電話，問他們“有一名意外出生的男孩，你們要認(rèn)養(yǎng)他嗎?”而他們的回答是“當(dāng)然要”。后來，我的生母發(fā)現(xiàn)，我現(xiàn)在的媽媽從來沒有大學(xué)畢業(yè)，我現(xiàn)在的爸爸則連高中畢業(yè)也沒有。她拒絕在認(rèn)養(yǎng)文件上做最后簽字。直到幾個月后，我的養(yǎng)父母同意將來一定會讓我上大學(xué)，她才軟化態(tài)度。

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it.

十七年后，我上大學(xué)了。但是當(dāng)時我無知選了一所學(xué)費幾乎跟史丹佛一樣貴的大學(xué)，我那工人階級的父母所有積蓄都花在我的學(xué)費上。六個月后，我看不出念這個書的價值何在。

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting

那時候，我不知道這輩子要干什么，也不知道念大學(xué)能對我有什么幫助，而且我為了念這個書，花光了我父母這輩子的所有積蓄，所以我決定休學(xué)，相信船到橋頭自然直。當(dāng)時這個決定看來相當(dāng)可怕，可是現(xiàn)在看來，那是我這輩子做過最好的決定之一。當(dāng)我休學(xué)之后，我再也不用上我沒興趣的必修課，把時間拿去聽那些我有興趣的課。

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5￠ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

這一點也不浪漫。我沒有宿舍，所以我睡在友人家里的地板上，靠著回收可樂空罐的五先令退費買吃的，每個星期天晚上得走七哩的路繞過大半個鎮(zhèn)去印度教的 Hare Krishna神廟吃頓好料。我喜歡Hare Krishna神廟的好料。追尋我的好奇與直覺，我所駐足的大部分事物，后來看來都成了無價之寶。舉例來說：

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.

當(dāng)時里德學(xué)院有著大概是全國最好的書法指導(dǎo)。在整個校園內(nèi)的每一張海報上，每個抽屜的標(biāo)簽上，都是美麗的手寫字。

Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

因為我休學(xué)了，可以不照正常選課程序來，所以我跑去學(xué)書法。我學(xué)了serif與san serif字體，學(xué)到在不同字母組合間變更字間距，學(xué)到活版印刷偉大的地方。書法的美好、歷史感與藝術(shù)感是科學(xué)所無法捕捉的，我覺得那很迷人。

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.

我沒預(yù)期過學(xué)的這些東西能在我生活中起些什么實際作用，不過十年后，當(dāng)我在設(shè)計第一臺麥金塔時，我想起了當(dāng)時所學(xué)的東西，所以把這些東西都設(shè)計進(jìn)了麥金塔里，這是第一臺能印刷出漂亮東西的電腦。如果我沒沉溺于那樣一門課里，麥金塔可能就不會有多重字體跟變間距字體了。

And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

又因為Windows抄襲了麥金塔的使用方式，如果當(dāng)年我沒這樣做，大概世界上所有的個人電腦都不會有這些東西，印不出現(xiàn)在我們看到的漂亮的字來了。當(dāng)然，當(dāng)我還在大學(xué)里時，不可能把這些點點滴滴預(yù)先串在一起，但是這在十年后回顧，就顯得非常清楚。

Again, 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.

我再說一次，你不能預(yù)先把點點滴滴串在一起;唯有未來回顧時，你才會明白那些點點滴滴是如何串在一起的。所以你得相信，你現(xiàn)在所體會的東西，將來多少會連接在一塊。你得信任某個東西，直覺也好，命運(yùn)也好，生命也好，或者業(yè)力。這種作法從來沒讓我失望，也讓我的人生整個不同起來。