Monday, October 10, 2011

Steve Jobs on Vocation

“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. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” (Steve Jobs: Commencement Address at Stanford, June 2005)

My problem with Steve Jobs's view of life is intuition and one's inner voice can be wrong. Consider this quote from Dr. H. H. Holmes (1896)who was a mass murderer.
"I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing." (Confession, 1896)


In Steve Jobs's case his inner voice changed the world in amazing ways, but one's inner voice is not a reliable guide in life to benefit the whole of society. There has to be a better way.

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