My fellow readers, I’m sure a lot of you are college students or graduates. Either way, I think it is safe to assume that we all have gone to friends’ or relatives’ commencement ceremony. I think it is also safe that there is one element of the ceremony, that we are ever so fond of, or perhaps dread it the most.. that’s right, THAT is the commencement speech.

Over the years, I have gone to many ceremonies, and needless to say, some maybe somewhat inspirational, some maybe fill with mundane phrases such as “you will be the pillars of the society tomorrow, etc.” and some are just utterly boring and filled with jibberish.

However, there is one exceptional commencement speech that I would like to share with everyone some interesting highlights from it, by Steven Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 at Stanford University.

• I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. – He made a decision, committed to it, and BELIEVED that it will be okay. Sometimes we just do not know where life is leading us, but a decision has to be made. After making the decision, trusting that it will be okay may just the the key that “it will turn out okay”!
• And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. – We have to learn to trust ourselves and our intuition. There has gotta be something right about doing the things that our gut tells us it feels right. Make sense? We may not have the beautiful typography we see on computer today if Steve Jobs had not done so!
• The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. – This is a good synonym to keeping an open mind.
• Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. – Again, trusting, having faith in your decision and yourself is important. Persistence is what takes us to success eventually.
• You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. – Work and lover together essentially ARE a major part of our lives… how do we love life and live happily if we don’t love them? If you don’t listen to me, listen to Steve Jobs, “Keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
• Here is the best piece of advice from the speech:
  

  “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, 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.

  Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

  He is right. If I know I’m going to die soon, I don’t have time to NOT do the things I want. If I ask myself the same question he did and I cannot answer with one thing that I would STILL do if I will die tomorrow for too many days, some changes are definitely needed.

• Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. – Understanding your life is completely your own responsibility. Do not get bogged down or fear others and what they think. Do not live life based on others’ expectation.
• Steve’s last words, “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” Just as the description of my blog suggests, life is a journey, an endless journey. It only stops when we choose to stop. As the earth is ceaselessly spinning, the world is constantly changing, and therefore we will never know everything and are always foolishwe. Knowing that, “staying hungry and staying foolish” becomes the only path.

Click here for the full commencement address.

Let’s all thanks Steve for his words of wisdom.

“The Poverty Business” is the title of an article from the May 21, 2007 issue of BusinessWeek. An excerpt from the article:

In 1989, households earning $30,000 or less a year paid an average annual interest rate on auto loans that was 16.8% higher than what households earning more than $90,000 a year paid. By 2004, the discrepancy had soared to 56.1%. Roughly the same happened with mortgage loans: a leap from 6.4% gap to one of 25.5%.

Does this help explain why the gap between the wealth and poor is expanding rapidly in the past years? Not only are these people making less, they also have to pay more. It’s a double whammy!

Another thing is, the poverty business, which includes service like pay-day loan, subprime mortgage, etc., use procedures and strategy that entice the poor or make use of their ignorance to use their service and then hit them with outrageous interest+fee (BlueHippo?). It is always my insistence that we are the results of our own action. Based on that principle, these people should educate themselves financially and know they are getting themselves into, otherwise, it’s their own fault. However at the same time, it’s also problematic that these business are exploiting these folks who are already making less. That’s just adding trouble to misery, kicking them when they’re down, and get them stuck in a vicious poverty cycle.

Who is responsible for this “poverty problem”? The business? Or the people themselves? What do you think?

Either way, this raises another point – there is a need in our society to better educate people on personal finance and raise their financial awareness.

Emerson has a wonderful and extremely relevant quote in regards to personal development IMHO:

What you are shouts so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you say.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Closely related to that…

“I cannot hear what you say for the thunder of what you are.”
- old Zulu proverb

What I understand from these quotes…

… if we want to change ourselves, we need to work from the inside out. However, this approach to change and improve takes time, in fact, it takes considerable time and effort. But this is also the only way to make changes to ourselves effectively and allow us to keep them permanently. This is something we must understand.

My observation in this age and era is that frequently, people look to improve themselves but what they seek are in fact only “quick fixes” that do not last. I see this from people in search for a better body where they rely medication and limiting of food intake but not together with exercise, to people relentlessly looking to boost their skill sets such as by trying to improve their communication skill where they seek superficial techniques but with no genuine desire to listen (and “listening” is a major part of communication, some research/references even claim it as 80-90%).

When we understand this, and with patience and perseverence, change and improvement to ourselves are no longer impossible goals.

Recently, things have been a little tough and hectic. Along with that, there are people with much negativity whom I cannot avoid completely. Anger and disturbance penting up inside from those people and I’m not sure how to deal with them and these feelings. It’s also giving me a hard time to keep my chin up these days…

It is difficult time, but I am able to maintain my positive attitude to deal with the things to come, which is for the better. A major factor being the blog posts that I have written myself.

At this point, I understand I have little readership, but I am writing because I want to and I am serving others by explaining things and principles that I think are important and working. Spread these words that I sincerely believe can make this world a happier place for all of us. Additionally, prior to writing these believes that live within me down on this blog, they are vague and hard to grasp. Laying the believes down on words also serves the purpose to clarify and to remind myself, so that I am really doing what I think I want to do. Like priests, I try to “practice what I preach” or do they now?

Anyways, because of these reasons, I am glad that I have been writing the materials on this blog.

More on the topic of dealing with negativity… one way I rationalize it is. If I am swimming in a sea of negativity…does it really help for me to become negative also? Or would it be better to stay positive and increase my own positivity to influence other? I think the answer is obvious.

Did I ever point out the importance of staying calm? Ah yes, I did here. Not very long ago! I’d like to point that out AGAIN. Why? Because I will share an incident that shows how important it is, and how I am still a student myself in learning and practicing all the personal development stuffs I talk about. I did not follow the rule of staying calm, had a huge screw-up, and I am going to pay for it. Seriously, I’m really going to “pay for it.”

There is this closely-related person in my life that just has a niche of getting on my nerve and making me angry every single time. I cannot comprehend him and his actions and most of the things he does disturb me greatly. I’m not sure if our energy vibrate on two completely opposing spectrum but I seem to always get “out of sync” around him. And today I let things get to me again. I got annoyed and kind of pissed off and got behind my wheel… Tragically, I caused some significant damage to my beloved Scion tC.

Basically I let his negativity get to me. I let him disturbed me and chose to give up my calmness, which is bad. I cannot blame him because he is the way he is, so the mistake is on me not being able to keep my calmness. I made a BIG boo-boo.

The lesson? Don’t get behind the wheel if you are pissed off! Okok, that IS true but what I REALLY want to do is to re-emphasize the importance of calmness and stillness in mind. It is important because it will minimize the possible mistake we can make and enable our best performance in any moment.

Alright, I made my point above and am not casting any blame for what happened. I am over the incident. It caused me turmoil right after it happened, but I am glad that I was able to let it go promptly to continue on “business” and regain calmness soon after. I understand that I made a mistake and I learn and I will be responsible for it…which means I have to pay and fix my car…

Gaaaaaaa…#@#$^%$@!#

Just kidding, what did I say again? :)