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關於喬布斯的英語故事

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喬布斯是個改變世界的傳奇,解釋喬布斯的成功,就必須瞭解他的思想。喬布斯通過 禪 找到了本心,找到歸宿,充滿對世界的洞察力,並藉助心靈的力量頑強地改變了世界。本站小編分享關於喬布斯的英語故事,希望可以幫助大家!

關於喬布斯的英語故事
  關於喬布斯的英語故事:蘋果公司CEO喬布斯的人生故事

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

這是蘋果電腦公司兼皮克斯動畫公司的CEO史蒂夫·喬布斯於2005年6月12日在斯坦佛大學畢業典禮上作的極富啓發意義的演講。

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

在呆了六個月之後,我便從裏德學院輟學了,但在那之後,我以旁聽者的身份在學院裏又呆了18個月才真正離開大學。那麼,我爲什麼要輟學呢?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

話還要從我出生之前說起。我的生母是一個年輕的未婚大學畢業生,她決定把我送去別人家收養,並堅持認爲,收養我的人必須是大學畢業生。在我出生前,所有關於收養我的事宜都已經安排妥當了。我本該被一個律師和他的妻子收養,但等到我真正出生了,他和他的妻子卻在最後時刻決定他們真正想要的是個女孩。所以,我現在的養父母(他們當時在等候名單上)在半夜接到一通電話,“我們有一個意外出生的男孩,你們想收養他嗎?”他們回答說,“當然想。”但後來,我的生母發現了我的養母不是大學畢業生,而我的養父甚至連高中都沒有畢業,於是她拒絕在最終的收養文件上簽字。幾個月後,她才最後妥協了,因爲我的養父母保證以後會送我去上大學。

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

十七年過去了,我真地上了大學。但我卻很天真地挑了一個和斯坦福大學一樣學費昂貴的學校,光是學費就花掉了我養父母辛辛苦苦積攢多年的積蓄,他們只是工薪階層。在學校待了六個月後,我看不出這學費花得值得。我不知道我的人生計劃是什麼,也不知道大學能夠如何幫助我找到這一目標。而且,我在學校唸書會花掉養父母一生的積蓄。於是,我決定輟學,並堅信這是一個正確的決定。當時,這是一個相當冒險的舉動,但今天回頭看看,那是我做出的最明智的決定之一。輟學之後,我馬上逃離了那些我對之乏味的課程,轉而開始旁聽那些看起來很有趣的科目。

t wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, Ireturned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles acrosstown every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to bepriceless later on. Let me give you one example:

但事情也並非全是美好的。輟學後我就沒有寢室了,因此,我睡在朋友房間的地板上。爲了有錢吃飯,我把可樂瓶子退回商店,只爲了那5美分的押金,每週星期天晚上,爲了吃一頓好的大餐,我還要走7英里的路,到城鎮另一頭的印度哈而克利須那寺。但我熱愛這種生活。而且,許多我出於好奇和直覺而偶然去做的事,後來也變證明是非常值得的。我來爲你們舉一個例子:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the ughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully handcalligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decidedto take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san seriftypefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, aboutwhat makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way thatscience can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

當時,裏德學院提供的恐怕是全國最棒的書法教育。走在校園裏,每一幅貼在牆上的海報,每一張抽屜上的標籤,都是漂漂亮亮的手寫體。由於我輟了學,不用再去上常規課程,我便決定報名參加書法班,學寫一手漂亮的字。在班裏,我學到了燈芯體和襯線體,在不同字母組合間的間隙的變化,以及如何才能讓印刷字體美觀。那種美妙、古樸、藝術、微妙,是科學所不能達到的。我對之着了迷。

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, whenwe were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it allinto the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in onthat single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionallyspaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computerwould have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on thiscalligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that theydo. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. Butit was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

在當時看來,這些事物彷彿於我的人生沒有任何實際的應用。但十年之後,我在設計第一臺蘋果電腦時,它們都重新浮現在我的腦海裏,我們在設計電腦時好好地運用了它們,使我們的蘋果電腦成爲了第一臺精緻排版的電腦。如果我當時沒有去旁聽書法班,蘋果電腦就不會有多字體選擇,字母間也不會有勻稱的間隙。而且,由於Windows系統是借鑑了Mac系統的產物,如今所有的個人電腦都沒有多字體選擇和美妙的字母間隙,這也是有可能的。這些事情就像一個一個的點。當我還在學校時,是不可能看得出這些未來的來龍去脈的。但十年之後,再回頭來看,一切就很明顯了。

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them lookingbackwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You haveto trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never letme down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

你們也是一樣,現在要將未來看透是不可能的,只有在將來,事物間的聯繫纔會顯現出來。因此,你們必須要相信,現在所學的東西總是能與未來聯繫起來的。而且,你們還得堅信一種東西,不管是直覺也好,命運也罷,甚至人生,或是因果循環,無論什麼都好。我的這種信仰從來沒有讓我失望,我的生命中的所有轉折都是它造成的。

  關於喬布斯的英語故事:喬布斯爭議不斷的一生中鮮爲人知的一段故事

Among the many love-hate relationships that Steve Jobsengendered during his remarkable 56 years on earth, noneendured as long—nor was as fraught—as his connection withChrisann Brennan, Jobs’ first girlfriend and the mother of hisdaughter Lisa.

喬布斯輝煌的56年人生中有過很多愛恨糾纏的故事,但其中持續時間最長且最令他難堪的,應該是與初戀女友、女兒麗莎的生母克里斯安·布倫南的恩怨。

The pair met at age 17 in 1972, as students at Homestead High School in Cupertino, Calif., andBrennan’s stormy dealings with Jobs—over his initial denials of paternity, his treatment of Lisa, andhis limited financial support—continued until his death nearly four decades later. Brennan offeredher unsparing take on Jobs—and becoming an “object of his cruelty”—in a 2013 memoir, entitledThe Bite in the Apple.

1972年,17歲的喬布斯與布倫南在加州庫比蒂諾的霍姆斯特德高中讀書時結識。而因爲喬布斯拒絕承認父親的身份、他對待女兒麗莎的方式以及他提供的有限的經濟支持,使布倫南與喬布斯的恩怨糾葛一直持續到喬布斯去世,長達四十多年。布倫南在2013年的一本回憶錄《咬一口蘋果》(The Bite in the Apple)中痛斥喬布斯,並講述自己受到了“他的殘忍對待”。

But one till-now-unrevealed chapter of their tortured history unfolded after the period covered byBrennan’s book, during the time when her ex- was achieving his highest renown and wealth. It’sthe story of how she asked Jobs, by then a billionaire, to repent for his “dishonorable behavior”with a $25 million payment to her—and another $5 million for their daughter, then 27.

但在兩人不堪回首的往事當中,有一部分目前仍鮮爲人知。那是在布倫南的回憶錄截止的時間之後,當時她的前男友已經達到了聲望和財富上的巔峯。布倫南要求當時已是億萬富翁的喬布斯向她支付2,500萬美元,爲自己的“不光彩行爲懺悔”,還要求他向當時27歲的女兒支付500萬美元。

Brennan, now 60, made her request in an undated, single-spaced, two-page letter, which she saysshe sent to Jobs in December 2005. She later provided a copy to Fortune (click here to readBrennan’s letter). A self-described “transmutational” painter and sculptor, Brennan was strugglingfinancially then, as she had throughout her adult life. Jobs, then 50 and the CEO of both AppleAAPL 0.22% and Pixar, was worth an estimated $3 billion.

現年60歲的布倫南在一封未註明日期、單倍行距、兩頁紙的信件中提出了上述要求。她聲稱自己在2005年12月將信寄給了喬布斯。後來,她向《財富》雜誌提供了一份信件的副本。自稱是“經過蛻變的”畫家和雕塑家的布倫南,在當時經濟拮据,而且她成年後的生活狀況一直沒有改善。而當時50歲的喬布斯,擔任蘋果公司和皮克斯動畫的CEO,身家估計爲30億美元

“I have raised our daughter under circumstances that were all together too tough andtougher than they needed to be,” Brennan wrote Jobs. “Obviously it was all the moreconfusing and difficult because you had so much money…thing is incomplete…ieve that decency and closure can be achieved through money. It is very simple.”

布倫南對喬布斯寫道:“我在異常艱難的條件下將我們的女兒撫養成人,我們本不需要經歷這樣的磨難。很顯然,更令人迷惑和難堪的是,你有那麼多錢……有些事情是不完整的……我相信,通過金錢可以獲得體面,讓我得到解脫。就是這麼簡單。”

Jobs ignored her request, Brennan says. Months later, she began writing a memoir about theirrelationship.

布倫南稱,喬布斯對她的要求視而不見。幾個月後,她開始撰寫回憶錄,描述他們之間的關係。

More than three years after writing Jobs and asking for money, Brennan tried again. In 2009—sick,out of money, and living with friends—she contacted him again. This time Brennan offered toshelve the book (which she says Lisa didn’t want her to publish anyway) in exchange for a financialsettlement.

向喬布斯寫信要錢三年多後,布倫南再次進行了嘗試。2009年,疾病纏身、窮困潦倒的布倫南,借住在朋友家,因此她再次聯繫了喬布斯。這一次,布倫南提出用停止出書(她表示,麗莎也不希望她出版)來換取經濟和解。

“I am asking you for the last time to please set up a trust for me for my life,” Brennanwrote Jobs on Sept. 26, 2009, according to emails she provided to Fortune. “I do notwant to cause conflict with you but I must do something. I have been ill for 3 years andI just do not have a choice anymore… one is going to be impressed with either ofus in this book and it will hurt Lisa who never deserved any of this. The choice is se consider providing me with $10,000 for a few months and working out a and I cannot talk because I am too ill and on a hair trigger…. Given mycircumstance, I am moving as fast as I can to have the money I need to live, it is eitheryou or the book.”

根據布倫南提供給《財富》雜誌的電子郵件,她曾在2009年9月26日對喬布斯寫道:“我最後一次請求你,爲我設立一個信託機構,支持我的生活。我不想與你發生衝突,但我必須做一些事情。我病了三年,已經別無選擇……沒有人會對這本書裏的我們兩個產生好印象,而且這會給麗莎造成傷害,她不應該受到這樣的對待。如何選擇由你決定。請考慮一下爲我提供10,000美元,幫我度過幾個月時間,併爲我設立一個信託機構。我們現在沒法直接談,因爲我病得很重,而且情緒不穩定……鑑於我目前的情況,我必須儘快獲得金錢來維持生計,要麼通過你要麼通過出書。”

“I don’t react well to blackmail,” Jobs wrote back that day, copying Lisa, then 31. “I will haveno part in any of this.”

喬布斯當天便回覆稱:“我不會被要挾。你的情況與我沒有絲毫關係。”並且他將郵件抄送給了當時31歲的麗莎。

(In an email, Lisa declined a request to comment for this story. A spokesperson for Laurene PowellJobs, the Apple co-founder’s widow, said she would also have no comment.)

(麗莎在電子郵件中拒絕對這件事發表意見。喬布斯的遺孀勞倫·鮑威爾·喬布斯的發言人稱,她對此也不作任何評論。)

After falling in love in high school, Jobs and Brennan, kindred counterculture spirits, had an on-again, off-again romance over five years. They never married, but lived together for parts of thattime. He got her pregnant at age 18—by their agreement, she had an abortion—then again, whenshe was 23.

高中時,喬布斯與布倫南因爲對反主流文化精神志趣相投而陷入愛河,兩人經歷了長達五年分分合合的戀情。他們沒有結婚,但大部分時間住在一起。布倫南在18歲時懷孕,但根據兩人的協議,她做了流產。23歲的時候,布倫南再次懷孕。

Lisa was born in May 1978. Jobs, who had launched Apple and was already wealthy, would give hisdaughter’s name to one of Apple’s first personal computers. Yet he went to great lengths to denypaternity for more than two years, while Brennan cleaned houses, waited tables, and went onwelfare. At one point, Jobs even swore in a signed court document that he couldn’t be Lisa’s fatherbecause he was “sterile and infertile,” and lacked “the physical capacity to procreate a child.” (Hehad three more children after marrying Powell in 1991.)

1978年5月,麗莎出生。當時,喬布斯創建了蘋果公司,已經非常富有,他以女兒的名字來命名第一臺蘋果個人電腦。但在超過兩年時間裏,他一直在想方設法否認父親的身份,與此同時,布倫南卻在做保潔員和餐廳服務員,並且要接受政府救濟。喬布斯甚至在一份簽字的法院公文中發誓,他不可能是麗莎的生父,因爲他“無法生育”,不具備“生育孩子的身體能力。”(他在1991年與鮑威爾結婚後生了三個孩子。)

After a lawsuit forced Jobs to take a paternity test, leading to a court order to provide childsupport and reimburse the state for its welfare costs, Jobs began paying $500 a month. Applewent public a month later, giving Jobs a personal net worth of more than $225 million. While Jobsrarely visited his daughter for years, bought a mansion, and drove a Mercedes, Brennan struggledto make ends meet. In a published essay, Lisa, who became a writer, later recalled how her father“would stop by our house some days, a deity among us for a few tingling moments or hours.”

一次訴訟迫使喬布斯進行了親子鑑定,法院據此責令他支付孩子的撫養費,並賠償國家的福利支出,從那時候開始,喬布斯每月支付500美元。一個月後,蘋果公司上市,喬布斯的個人淨值超過2.25億美元。雖然喬布斯多年來會偶爾去看望女兒,並且買了一處房產和一輛奔馳汽車,但布倫南依舊經濟拮据,入不敷出。後來,已經成爲作家的麗莎在一篇文章中回憶稱,她的父親“隔一些日子便會來我們家,就像下凡的天神一樣,在家裏待幾分鐘或者幾個小時。”

Brennan says later Jobs apologized for the way he’d treated her and Lisa. After developing a closerrelationship with his daughter—who legally changed her name to Lisa Brennan-Jobs at age nine—he increased his support “in small increments,” eventually to $4,000 a month, says Brennan. “Hewas cheap as he could be. He under-provided for everything. It was always like pulling teeth to gethim to step up.”

布倫南說,喬布斯後來曾爲自己對待她和麗莎的方式道歉。布倫南稱,隨着與女兒的關係愈加親密,喬布斯也開始“少量地”增加撫養費,最後達到每個月4,000美元。他們的女兒在九歲時正式更名爲麗莎·布倫南-喬布斯。“他非常小氣。各個方面都是如此。要讓他多支付撫養費非常困難。”

Over the years after their daughter’s birth, Jobs bought Brennan two cars and a $400,000 house,paid Lisa’s private school tuition, and at times offered other financial help. Despite this, Brennan filedfor bankruptcy in 1996. During high school, Lisa lived with her father (and his family) for the firsttime. In a second essay, Lisa wrote: “Growing up I’d been very poor, very rich, and sometimes inthe middle.”

女兒出生幾年後,喬布斯爲布倫南買過兩輛車和一棟價值40萬美元的房子,爲麗莎支付了私立學校的學費,不時還會提供其他經濟支持。儘管如此,布倫南還是在1996年申請了破產。高中期間,麗莎第一次與父親(和他的家人)住在一起。在第二篇文章中,麗莎寫道:“在我成長的過程,我曾經非常貧窮,也非常富有,有時候介於二者中間。”

Jobs’ money—and his favor—could be withdrawn at a moment’s notice. After a summertimeconflict with Lisa, back home from Harvard, Jobs stopped supporting her and refused to pay hercollege tuition. Lisa moved in with a married couple down the street, who covered the tuition; Jobsdidn’t repay them for years.

但喬布斯可能隨時收回他的錢和好感。一年夏天,喬布斯與麗莎出現矛盾,從哈佛大學回到家後,他便停止了對女兒的資助,並拒絕支付她的大學學費。麗莎不得不搬到了街道盡頭的一對夫婦家中,他們爲她支付了學費;喬布斯多年來一直沒有償還這筆費用。

One e-book edition of Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Jobs quotes him saying that hedidn’t attend his daughter’s 2000 Harvard graduation because Lisa “didn’t even invite me.” In fact,according to Brennan and two other sources, his daughter did invite him and he did attend. (According to a newspaper account at the time, Jobs used his daughter’s graduation to getexcused from jury duty.)

沃爾特·艾薩克森在經授權的喬布斯自傳電子版中提到,喬布斯曾說他不會出席女兒2000年哈佛大學畢業典禮,因爲麗莎“根本沒有邀請我”。事實上,據布倫南和另外兩位知情人士透露,麗莎邀請了喬布斯而且喬布斯也出席了典禮。(根據當時一份報紙的報道,喬布斯曾用女兒的畢業典禮爲藉口來逃避陪審員義務。)

After Brennan pointed out to Jobs that his official Apple biography described him as living in SiliconValley “with his wife and three children”—“Lisa was so upset,” says Brennan—he changed it in July2001 to “three of his four children.” In December 2004, it was changed back to “three children.”

布倫南曾向喬布斯指出,他的蘋果公司官方個人簡介中形容他在硅谷“與妻子和三個孩子住在一起”,“麗莎爲此非常生氣”——於是在2001年7月,喬布斯將其改爲“四個孩子中的三個”。2004年12月,又被修改回“三個孩子”。

In 2005, Brennan was again in financial distress. Although she and Jobs rarely spoke at that point,she wrote him, asking for an “acknowledgement gift” large enough to end her money troublesforever.

2005年,布倫南再次陷入財務困境。雖然當時她和喬布斯鮮有聯繫,但她還是寫信給喬布斯,要求他提供一大筆“謝禮”,幫她永遠擺脫經濟困境。

“By raising our daughter and raising her well, I have provided you with a means to having arelationship with her now,” wrote Brennan, explaining why she believed she deserved the payment. “I never turned her against you. I think you might have taken this for granted, but it should meana great deal to you…

布倫南寫道:“我撫養女兒長大,並將她培養成才,並且我現在爲你提供了一條途徑,幫你與她保持和睦的父女關係。”她解釋了自己爲什麼應該得到這筆錢。“我從未讓她與你爲敵。我想你可能一直認爲這是理所當然的,但這對你應該有重要的意義……”

“I think you have made a lot of money for a lot of people over the years yet I wonder ifanyone has done as much for you as I have with Lisa and done so without the full andsustained support that this work has realistically required.”

“多年來,你幫助很多人賺到了許多錢,但是否有人曾像我和麗莎那樣爲你付出這麼多,而且我做這一切,並沒獲得實際需要的任何充分的、持續的支持。”

Brennan said she had arrived at the figure of “$25 million net” after years of consideration. She alsorequested $5 million for Lisa, and said she planned to give their daughter another $5 million out ofher payment.

布倫南稱,經過多年的考慮,她認爲最終的數字爲“2,500萬美元”。並且她要求喬布斯支付給麗莎500萬美元,她也會從自己得到的部分中再拿出500萬美元給他們的女兒。

“It may make sense that when one goes through a traumatic experience over so many years thatthere is a need for truth and reconciliation for real closure to take place. This letter is the truth andmoney and appreciation represent reconciliation. I should have received the peaceful experiencesthat wealth provides so I could provide for Lisa as she was growing up… me this balances what Ihave done for you.”

“一個人經歷過如此長時間的悲慘遭遇,需要用真相和和解才能實現真正的解脫。這封信便是真相,而錢和感激則代表了和解。我本應該獲得財富帶來的平和的生活,供養麗莎成長……我認爲,這筆錢足以彌補我爲你所做的一切。”

“I am requesting we close this chapter forever,” Brennan added. “Money is the only meaningfulthing that can do it at this point. All the years that I have lost as a result of a sort of theft fromdishonorable behavior can heal and be forgiven.”

布倫南補充道:“我請求我們將這一頁永久地翻過去。目前,金錢是唯一有意義的方式。多年來,因爲一個竊賊的不光彩行爲讓我失去的一切,都可以得到彌補和諒解。”

Brennan says Jobs never responded to her letter.

布倫南說喬布斯沒有回信。

Her 2009 payment request, however—offered as an alternative to publishing her memoir—brought his immediate, angry response.

但她在2009年的要求,即要麼付錢要麼出版回憶錄,立刻引來了喬布斯憤怒的迴應。

“I am not trying to black mail you,” Brennan replied. “Please try to see that I wouldprefer to resolve things and that I have asked you, maybe poorly, to help before. Ihave been without a home for over a year and I [am] ill and I am fried. It would beconvenient for me to die but even this does not happen. I am stuck with a body and alife, I need to do something.”

布倫南迴複稱:“我並不是想勒索你。請你明白,我更願意解決問題,而且我之前曾經請求你的幫助,或許方式有些不妥。我無家可歸已經一年時間,而且疾病纏身,沒有工作。可能死了對我來說更好,但我還沒死成。我無法擺脫這幅軀體和這樣的生活,我需要做些什麼。”

Lisa’s own relationship with Jobs remained volatile into adulthood, leading to long periods wherethey didn’t speak to one another. But Lisa was at her father’s bedside when Jobs died at home inPalo Alto, on October 5, 2011, at 56.

即便麗莎長大成人之後,她與喬布斯的關係也時好時壞,兩人曾有很長時間沒有聯繫。但2011年10月5日,56歲的喬布斯在帕洛阿爾託的家中去世時,麗莎便陪伴在喬布斯的身邊。

Brennan’s conflict continued with his widow. Days after Jobs’ death, from pancreatic cancer,Brennan published an essay in Rolling Stone, where she recalled their early, free-spirited romance—as well as the “all-too-often despotic jerk Steve turned into as he rose to meet the world.” This,Brennan says, got her “uninvited” from a private memorial service for Jobs on the Stanfordcampus.

但布倫南與喬布斯遺孀的衝突仍在繼續。喬布斯因胰腺癌去世幾天之後,布倫南在《滾石》雜誌上發表了一篇文章,回憶了早年與喬布斯自由奔放的戀情,以及“隨着喬布斯的成功,他如何變成一個專橫的惡人”。布倫南稱,這篇文章導致她“沒有獲邀”參加在斯坦福大學校園爲喬布斯舉辦的私人追悼會。

In January 2014, she wrote Laurene Powell Jobs a certified letter, urging her to do what hewouldn’t, through a generous settlement from his estate.

2014年1月,她給勞倫·鮑威爾·喬布斯寫了一封掛號信,要求她完成喬布斯未做的事情,慷慨地從他的遺產中拿出一部分與她進行和解。

“Your loyalty to Steve does not mean loyalty to his hatreds,” Brennan wrote. “….I simply neverdeserved the years of poverty and justifications he built up against me…

布倫南寫道:“你對史蒂夫的忠誠並不意味着也要忠於他的仇恨。……我不應該經受這些年的貧困,以及他爲了對付我我給出的那些理由……”

“You are in a position to help me without harm to your own life situation andchildren… you can find your way to helping so that I, as Lisa’s mother, can live indignity and peace, we don’t need to tell anyone… could be very quietly and legallydone.”

“你有機會幫助我,並且不會影響到你自己的生活和孩子……如果你能幫助我,作爲麗莎的母親,我可以得到體面平和的生活,我們不需要告訴任何人……這一切可以在私底下根據法律完成。”

In his estate, Jobs left their daughter a multi-million-dollar inheritance, which Lisa has used to helpsupport her, according to Brennan. But Brennan says she never received a response to her letterfrom Powell Jobs. She ended her plea to Steve Jobs’ widow this way: “It is awkward between us formany reasons, but I do want you to know that I deeply appreciate what you must have gonethrough during all the years of Steve’s illness and then his death. I know you loved him very truth, so did I.”

喬布斯在遺囑中爲他們的女兒留下了數百萬美元的遺產,據布倫南表示,麗莎一直在用這筆錢資助她的生活。但布倫南表示,她始終沒有收到鮑威爾·喬布斯的回信。在給喬布斯遺孀的信件結尾,她這樣寫道:“出於許多原因,我們之間的關係有些尷尬,但我真心希望你能明白,史蒂夫患病多年以及他的離世讓你經歷的痛苦,我非常理解。我知道你非常愛他。事實上,我也愛他。”

  關於喬布斯的英語故事:喬布斯向你講述人生的三個故事之一:我輟學了

Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

謝謝大家。很榮幸能和你們,來自世界最好大學之一的畢業生們,一塊兒參加畢業典禮。老實說,我大學沒有畢業,今天恐怕是我一生中離大學畢業最近的一次了。

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

今天我想告訴大家來自我生活的三個故事。沒什麼大不了的,只是三個故事而已。

The first story is about connecting the dots.

第一個故事,如何串連生命中的點滴。

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

我在裏得大學讀了六個月就退學了,但是在18個月之後--我真正退學之前,我還常去學校。爲何我要選擇退學呢?這還得從我出生之前說起。我的生母是一個年輕、未婚的大學畢業生,她決定讓別人收養我。她有一個很強烈的信仰,認爲我應該被一個大學畢業生家庭收養。於是,一對律師夫婦說好了要領養我,然而最後一秒鐘,他們改變了主意,決定要個女孩兒。然後我排在收養人名單中的養父母在一個深夜接到電話,“很意外,我們多了一個男嬰,你們要嗎?”“當然要!”但是我的生母后來又發現我的養母沒有大學畢業,養父連高中都沒有畢業。她拒絕在領養書上簽字。幾個月後,我的養父母保證會讓我上大學,她妥協了。

This was the start in my life. And 17 years later, I did go to college, but I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

這是我生命的開端。十七年後,我上大學了,但是我很無知地選了一所差不多和斯坦福一樣貴的學校,幾乎花掉我那藍領階層養父母一生的積蓄。六個月後,我覺得不值得。我看不出自己以後要做什麼,也不曉得大學會怎樣幫我指點迷津,而我卻在花銷父母一生的積蓄。所以我決定退學,並且相信沒有做錯。一開始非常嚇人,但回憶起來,這卻是我一生中作的最好的決定之一。從我退學的那一刻起,我可以停止一切不感興趣的必修課,開始旁聽那些有意思得多的課。

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

事情並不那麼美好。我沒有宿舍可住,睡在朋友房間的地上。爲了吃飯,我收集五分一個的舊可樂瓶,每個星期天晚上步行七英里到哈爾-克里什納廟裏改善一下一週的伙食。我喜歡這種生活方式。能夠遵循自己的好奇和直覺前行後來被證明是多麼的珍貴。讓我來給你們舉個例子吧。

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

當時的裏德大學提供可能是全國最好的書法指導。校園中每一張海報,抽屜上的每一張標籤,都是漂亮的手寫體。由於我已退學,不用修那些必修課,我決定選一門書法課上上。在這門課上,我學會了“serif”和"sans-serif"兩種字體、學會了怎樣在不同的字母組合中改變字間距、學會了怎樣寫出好的字來。這是一種科學無法捕捉的微妙,楚楚動人、充滿歷史底蘊和藝術性,我覺得自己被完全吸引了。

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

當時我並不指望書法在以後的生活中能有什麼實用價值。但是,十年之後,我們在設計第一臺 Macintosh計算機時,它一下子浮現在我眼前。於是,我們把這些東西全都設計進了計算機中。這是第一臺有這麼漂亮的文字版式的計算機。要不是我當初在大學裏偶然選了這麼一門課,Macintosh計算機絕不會有那麼多種印刷字體或間距安排合理的字號。要不是Windows照搬了 Macintosh,個人電腦可能不會有這些字體和字號。

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

要不是退了學,我決不會碰巧選了這門書法課,個人電腦也可能不會有現在這些漂亮的版式了。

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

當然,我在大學裏不可能從這一點上看到它與將來的關係。十年之後再回頭看,兩者之間關係就非常、非常清楚了。你們同樣不可能從現在這個點上看到將來;只有回頭看時,纔會發現它們之間的關係。所以你必須相信,那些點點滴滴,會在你未來的生命裏,以某種方式串聯起來。你必須相信一些東西——你的勇氣、宿命、生活、因緣,隨便什麼——因爲相信這些點滴能夠一路連接會給你帶來循從本覺的自信,它使你遠離平凡,變得與衆不同。


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