“Sometimes life hits you in the face with a brick. Keep the faith.”
Steve Jobs
I just viewed (a couple of times) a video of Steve Jobs making the 2005 commencement address at Stanford. My thanks to Jane Friedman, who posted it on her blog where I first saw it.
Believe it or not, Steve Jobs is a survivor. He’s a successful one to be sure, but a survivor nonetheless. He was a college dropout, fired from his own company (Apple), and diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (which he later learned was a rare operable form, which is why he is still alive).
Among his comments in the speech was that you couldn’t connect the dots (about life) looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking backward.
I especially like the way Jane Friedman summarizes his point in her blog post: “Life can only be lived forward, and understood backward.”
If there were ever a mantra for survivors moving from surviving to thriving, that would be it.
Amen!
Yes, indeed!