When
Steve Jobs passed away the other day I watched the commencement
speech he gave in 2005. It was good and motivational like a
commencement speech should be. One of his main points was:
...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.
Live
life like it's your last day on earth. Really? I love my job now,
but on my last day in the world I certainly wouldn't go to work.
Does that mean I should change something? How you would live the
last day of your life is a bad metric to judge your life by. Maybe
you could use how you would live the last couple of years of your
life, but not just the last day.
I
think Mr. Jobs is right though that we should live the live we want.
Life is short. We don't have forever here. We should be doing
something we enjoy and find worthwhile. Even that though is hard to
judge. For years I didn't really enjoy what I did on a daily basis
in Architecture. I was learning the field though and those years
were instrumental to me being able to do the job I enjoy now. Should
I have abandoned the field?
How
about children? There has certainly been several days in a row where
I didn't want to be a parent. Where I didn't want to go from five in
the morning until eleven at night. Should I have bailed on my kids?
My previous choices in life have informed the circumstances of my
life. Sometimes life is doing what you have to do.
In
both my examples there is a sweet spot. I'm in the sweet spot with
my job, and pretty much so with Mackenzie. Years of work dealing
with all the many stages between zero and five have given us a
awesome little girl that if today was the last day of my life I would
certainly want to hang out with her.
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