Steve Jobs: A Fond Farewell

Image: Google

Remember the first time you unwrapped your MacBook from its box? How about the first time you pressed “Play” on your iPod and heard your favorite song being played with unbelievable clarity, or the time when you first swirled your finger around your iPhone, the first really smart “smartphone”? Remember the look on your friend’s face when you offered them a chance to play with your shiny new iPad, or the time(s) when you couldn’t even get into the jam-packed Apple store?

When you stop to think about it, Apple is more than a great company. It’s more than an innovation station. And it’s way more than a brand. Somehow, over the last few years, Apple has become part of our lifestyle; its products are not luxuries, but necessities. The company has grown to consistently draw worldwide attention, fought away competitors with incredible strength, and sustained in a time when consumer spending took an extended vacation.

Now imagine being the man behind all of that.

As consumers, we get incredible amusement and utility from all of these products, but the mastermind that made the Apple brand what it is today got something more out of all of it. Steve Jobs lived out his passion by being the CEO of Apple and continually delivering sleek, innovative, new, and highly-demanded products to the public that not only looked cool, but worked better than anything we had ever used before. And he did it so successfully because he had the courage to follow his intuition and his heart. He knew what he was meant to do, and he did it…quite well.

His passion for following his heart and doing what he loved in life is incredibly inspiring, and I’ve highlighted this passion of his in a post featuring his now famous Stanford Commencement address. Today, as I join the rest of the world mourning the loss of the greatest innovator of our time, there were many opportunities to read about his life and the inspiration he gave to us all.

I found an article called “The 15 Most Inspirational Steve Jobs Quotes” and wanted to share some of them with you today, to honor his legacy and also to continue to spread his inspiring messages of getting the most out of life. Read through these, and the rest in the articles I linked to above, and store them in a special place in your mind.

The world gives a fond farewell to Steve Jobs today, but something tells me he will not be soon forgotten.

“I want to put a ding in the universe.”        And that he did.

“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.”

  

Keep Smiling, 
Optimal Optimist