Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!

Steve Job’s 2015 Stanford Commencement Address is pure wisdom centred around following one’s heart.

Following one’s Heart requires confidence that comes when one has the belief that whatever one is doing right now will somehow connect in future and eventually will contribute to life’s greater meaning or purpose. This is so because Job reasons that we can only connect the dots going backwards not forward. Since the outcome of whatever unusual or new one embarks on in the present lies in the realm of predictions and not on past experience, one faces the question: “What good shall this yield going forward?”, and for that one has most of the times no absolute answer.

What good itself does following one’s heart bring? Other than new experiences or optimal well-being, it frees oneself from external expectations, fear of failure and saves oneself from living someone else’s life. Thus following one’s heart is a way to giving direction to one’s life and leading it with integrity. It’s not hard to imagine how boredom or lack of meaning (which happens when one doesn’t love what one’s doing) causes us to seek social validation and in doing so loses sight of one’s direction in life and reliance on oneself. Job relates how loving what he did (follows from following one’s heart) saved him from the pain of loss and social rejection and paid dividends later on. Following one’s heart despite the loss, again, connected in life going forward. So, what is loss?

Job suggests a very handy heuristic or a device that enables one to follow one’s heart and that is the question: “If this were to be the last day in my life, am I doing what needs to be done?” Many greats in the past have tried to defy mortality in one way or the other from Pharaohs of Egypt to spiritual Gurus in the East. Job reasons that this question brings to front and centre not only what is significant for oneself but also is a potent enabler of following one’s heart. One, then, becomes less dogmatic and opinionated, embraces change and sees things with a fresh perspective (another consequence of following one’s heart). One can reason Loss is the closest cousin to Death and undoubtedly feels painful at the moment, yet through Loss Life renews itself. This is how Jobs connects Life & Death and hints to us the true meaning of Loss.

How Job charts life journey through stages of autonomy, competence and connection in a central theme of “Following one’s Heart” while removing obstacles in the way is utterly brilliant and without a doubt an unparalleled lesson in human motivation and doing things that make all the difference.