How to Live Before You Die || Steve Jobs || Compulsory English Grade 11

 

Literature

Essays

How to Live Before You Die

 

Before Reading

Answer these questions

a. What do you know about Steve Job's family and economic background?

Ans:- Steve Jobs was born out of an unwed mother, who was a college graduate. He was opened to be adopted in his childhood. He was almost adopted by a lawyer couple, but later they decided to adopt a female child. After that he was adopted by a working class couple when the signed a promissory document accepting to send Steve College. His adopting parents were poor.

 

b. Steve Jobs was a very successful man. What makes a person successful in your view?

Ans:- Steve Jobs was an American businessman, chairperson and CEO and co-founder of Apple Inc. Anybody becomes successful if he is hardworking, dedicated to his/her mission, loves his work, identifies own creative potentials, have courage to do new things etc.

 

c. Steve Jobs had many doubts on how he wanted to lead his life. Do you have the same problem?

Ans:-  Yes, I have also same problems as Steve Jobs used to have. The subjects I am studying are not of my interest. I am studying accounts because my parents want me to have a job in a good government bank. But what I want to study is Computer science. I am very much interested in computer, but my parents forced me to study management. I am thinking of dropping out college and thinking of rejoin with computer science.

 

About the Author:

v Steven Paul Jobs was born on 24 February 1955 at San Francisco, California and died on 5 Oct 2011 at Palo Alto California.

v He is an American businessman, industrial designer, investor, media proprietor and a motivational speaker,

v He was a son of an unwed mother, a graduate student, was adopted by two couples.

v He was brought up in Cupertino, California, known as Silicon Valley,

v Chairperson, chief executive & Co founder of Apple incorporation,

v Founder of NeXT company later known as Pixar Company which produces animated films,

v One of the pioneer of Micro Computer Technology

v Listed as the most powerful person in business by Fortune magazine in 2007,

 

The Speech:  How to Live Before You Die

v This is a transcript of a famous motivational commencement speech given by Steve delivered at Stanford University in California, USA in 2005 A.D.,

v This speech in tripartite structure consists of three autobiographical short stories (anecdotes) that gives us a message of the importance of time,

v This speech also teaches us not to be trapped by dogmas of other people,

v This speech also motivates us to have the courage to follow our heart and intuition which help us to be what we want to become.

 

The Speech: How to Live Before you Die

This motivational speech is about just three autobiographical stories about Steven Jobs which are

i. The First story is about connecting the dots

ii. The Second story is about love and Loss

iii. The Third Story is about death

 

The First Story: Connecting the Dots

v Gives reason for dropping out Reed College (Oregon USA)

v This story covers the experiences since his birth to the age of 29,

v He was an unwanted child of an unwed mother, a college graduate student, who wished her son to be adopted by college graduates

v A layer couple finally changed their decision to adopt a female child, and later a working class parents adopted him signing the adoption paper promising him to send college,

v He went to Reed college at 17, despite his poor parents were managed to pay for his study, he dropped out his college because he did not find it valuable for him,

v He was guided by his curiosity and his intuition, dropping out the college was pretty scary at the beginning, but later he found it his best decision,

v He was interested in Calligraphy offered by Reed College, and decided to take a calligraphy class, he learnt Serif and sans serif typefaces, and he found them fascinating.

v He used the beautiful fonts to design his first Macintosh computer, the first computer with beautiful typography, later Windows copied it.

v He found out connection among dropping out college, learning calligraphy, and designing the first Macintosh computer,

v He said that we can connect dots looking backward and forward, the dots will somehow connect in your future,

v We must have trust in our gut, destiny, life, karma etc.,

 

 

The Second Story: Love and Loss

v He tells us his story of achieving a huge success in Apple Inc., fired from Apple, founding of the NeXT company, meeting with his beloved, and returning back to Apple

v He found out what he was longing in his early life,

v He started to work in his parents' garage at 20, within 10 years, with his friend Steve Wozniak Apple became a large company worth $2 billion with 4000 employees,

v At 30 he was fired from his company Apple. He hired a very talented person to run the company, there was tussle, the Board of Directors sided him, he found it devastating,

v He was a public failure, but later he was determined to do something new and innovative, at 35 he was able to setup another company name Pixar (NeXT) and met his wife Laurene; Pixar created animated feature film, became the most successful animation studio,

v Later Apple bought Pixar, and Steven returned back to Apple.

v He never lost his faith, hard work, love for creative potential and his work, he got success with his wonderful family,

 

Third Story: Death

v This is a story about facing the death closely and finds the experience to be life's change agent,

v Inspired by a quote, "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." This means when one knows that he will be dead soon, is the the most important tool to help us make a big choice in life.

v Realizing each day a last day, helped him to do what he was about to do that day, it helped him to change something,

v The fear of death helped him to remove all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, only recognizing what is truly important,

v It helps to avoid the trap of thinking of losing something, helped to follow his heart,

v He was diagnosed with tumor on his pancreas, a type of cancer which was impossible to cure, he was no longer living more than six months, doctor advised him to be prepared to die, one day when he was being diagnosed, his case was found to be rare case of the cancer, curable with surgery, he had surgery and became fine.

v That was the time he faced closely the death, nobody wants to die, however no one escapes of it. But it is the single best invention of life- a life's change agent, clears the old to make way for the new, every having the fear of death makes you new clearing the olds.

v Time is limited and we mustn't waste it just living someone else's life, not to be trapped by other principles, other's opinions, we must have courage to follow our heart and intuition.

v Stevens was inspired by a slogan "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish", found on the back cover of the book "The Whole Earth catalog" by Stewart Brand. Stay hungry can be interpreted as "stay eager", and stay foolish can be interpreted as "be ready to try new things" or "be ready to step out of your comfort zone".

 

Understanding the text

Answer the following questions.

 

a. What is the story about Steve Jobs' birth?

Ans:- Steven Jobs was an unwanted child of of an unwed mother, who was a college graduate students. He was opened to be adopted by college graduates by his biological mother. He was about to be adopted by a lawyer couple, but later wanted to adopt a female child. After that he was adopted by a working class parents after signing the adoption document promising him to send college.

 

b. What does he mean he he says, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards"?

Ans:- In the second story entitle "Connecting the Dots", Stevens says, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards." This means if we try to predict our future we will fail because it never goes the way we want. What we can do is we can connect our present and past experience with what we will be doing in the future. Or in other words he is trying to say that our choices and mistakes from the past could unexpectedly lead to your success in the future.

 

c. What happened when Steven Jobs turned 30?

Ans:- His friend and Steven worked 10 years instantly at his parents' garage to make Apple Inc. a two billion dollars company employing 4000 employees. At 29 he released the final creation the Macintosh, but when he turned 30 he was fired from the same company which established. His labor of his entire adult life was gone because of a person whom he hired to run the company.

 

d. Jobs contends that you need to love to do what you do in order to be great at it. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Ans:-  A single moment's effort can't make us successful, it needs hard work, dedication, trust in our heart and intuition to become successful. We must love to do what we want to do. We must understand our heart and trust in our intuition to select our desired path in our life. I agree with him. Our work fills a large part of our life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what we believe is great work.  And the only way to do great work is to love what we do. We must go on searching until we find a suitable work for us.

 

e. Is death really life's greatest invention?

Ans:- Stevens Jobs said, "Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is Life's change agent." No one wants to die but it is the ultimate destination of all of us. Here "death" is compared with the single best invention of life. It's also Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

 

Reference to the Context

a. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.

"We have unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course."

i. Who was the baby boy?

Ans:- Stevens Jobs was the baby boy.

 

ii. What does 'do you want him?' mean?

Ans: "Do you want him?", it means his biological mother asking if adopting parents would like to adopt Steven Jobs.

 

iii. Who does 'they' refer to?

Ans:- 'They' refers to the would be adopting parents of Stevens Jobs.

 

b. Explain the following lines:

i. "You have to trust in something- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever."

Ans:- This line is taken from the motivational speech a famous person and CEO of Apple Inc. delivered at Stanford College in 2005 in commencement address. This line says that we must follow these four driving forces toward our success. We must have courage or gut to do something new, must have trust in our destiny because it is connected to our heart and intuition, know the value of life and focus on works that we love to do.

ii."Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

Ans:- This line is taken from the motivational speech a famous person and CEO of Apple Inc. delivered at Stanford College in 2005 in commencement address. This line emphasizes on the importance of time. Our life is short and the success in our life is achieved by utilizing the precious time. Each and every moment is precious if you want to live a life being great. It is not good living just as other people live. We must do something new, original, and unique. You are not going to live forever. You don't even know how much time you have. We must stop living our life by the principles of other people. We must stop doing what we are forced or told to and start finding what we love. We have to do something, we want to do.

 

c. What does he mean by "don’t' settle"?

Ans:-  Steven Jobs says, "don't settle." This is very much similar to the quote "Stay hungry. Stay foolish." We must stay eager try to do something new. We must not be satisfied with what we achieved. We must love our work to make our work a great work. We mustn't live in comfort zone always. We must have courage, passion, dedication to create something new and great by following our heart and intuition. Sometimes life hits us in the head with a brick, but we mustn't lose faith. We must go ahead continuously doing what we love to do.

 

d. Which style of speech is used by the speaker to persuade the audience?

Ans:-  The speech is delivered by CEO of Apple Inc., Steven Jobs, delivered at Stanford University in 2005. This is a motivational speech to the new graduate students at Stanford University in 2005. This speech is tripartite in structure, consisting in three parts, and each part is an autobiographical anecdote to communicate a message of resilience and personal integrity. Though this is a speech, it is written in narrative style and the speaker is the narrator. He is delivering his message to the audience by using the personal narrative story telling technique.

 

e. It is not easy to motivate others. How do you think Steve Jobs' speech is so inspiring?

Ans:- Motivate means stimulate or inspire others for doing something. The motivator must be a role model to be followed like the CEO of Apple Inc. The way Steven Jobs is motivating students at Stanford University is awesome. Instead of motivating students merely delivering a speech, he created three stories out his life experiences which are really inspiring. He communicates many ideas folding into three stories. Being born from unwed mother, suffered through economic problem, he becomes able to found a famous company named Apple Inc. worth trillion dollars. His dedication, courage, love to his work, continuous efforts, and his creative awareness made him a world famous successful person.

 

f. Why do you think Steve Jobs used the personal narrative story telling technique in his speech? What influence does it have on the audiences?

Ans:- Story telling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.  It is an interactive art of using words and actions to untie the elements and images of a story while encouraging the listener’s imagination. Storytelling is the focal point of any successful speech or presentation. So I think, Steve Jobs used the personal story telling technique in his speech. Each and every lines of the speech is influential to the audiences. The speech encourages us to select the field which love, teaches us to connect one life experiences to another, failure is a step to become successful, follow our heart and intuition, value the time, not be trapped in other's dogmas, eager for creativity, and having courage to do something new.

 

Reference beyond the text

a. One of Steve Jobs mottos was: 'Think differently'. Can this make a person succeed in life? What challenges are there in thinking differently?

Ans:- "Think different" is an advertising slogan used from 1997 to 2002 by Steven Jobs to promote Apple Computer, Inc., now named Apple Inc. Think differently means making something uniquely yours like Mac computer of Steve Jobs. It is to be bold in our choice, to be expressive in our views and certainly to be artistically true to ourselves. It is to be fearless, facing challenges, setting goal of life, making priorities, taking control, believe is self,  not to be afraid of failure and learning new things. It is obviously a driving force that leads us towards success. When we try to be different than common, we feel different challenges. First of all we come out of the comfort zone. We must not be satisfied with common things. We must uplift us into a next level. We become failure several times, but we must face the challenges. They are criticized by the society, family members, friends and relatives. Even they call us crazy or foolish. But the very craziness or foolishness makes us great one day.

 

b. What does the slogan "Stay hungry; stay foolish" mean to you?

Ans:- It's the slogan Steve Jobs followed and became a famous person. Stay hungry means we must always be eager to know new things, and try to achieve important things in our life. We are habituated to remain in a comfort zone living a normal life. We must have creative awareness and must have courage to shape our creativity. We must not be satisfied with what we gained. A number of failures may distract us from our mission, but we must keep on going doing things until we achieve success. Yes, this is the foolishness of great personalities.

 

c. What does it mean to be a visionary? What makes Steve Jobs different from a fortune teller?

Ans:- To be a visionary means being able to imagine how a country, society, industry etc. will develop in the future and to plan in a subtle way. It is to be imaginative, creative, imaginative; farsighted which are the qualities of the people who think differently. Fortune telling is just a practice of predicting information about a person's life.  This is the practices of divination. Steve Jobs is different from a fortune teller because he labored hard to bring his vision true. He set out concrete steps to bring his vision true. He was imaginative, focused, open minded, fan of new ideas, positive energizer, never afraid of failures, communicated his vision/dream, so he was different from a fortune teller.