I grabbed this photo from the Apple website of course. Like most people I was saddened by Steve Jobs passing last week. Steve firmly believed that you should live your life doing what you love, and if you didn’t know what that was rather than settle never give up searching for it. More importantly he lived his life this way and now his life, though cut short, serves as a shining example to the rest of us.
I remember when I first got interested in computers, and my first experience with Apple, how much I loved the Apple IIc. Unlike the Tandy PCs which were real popular in school back then they simply worked and were functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. These days my wife and I both use Macs though I use Windows and Linux primarily. But the Mac is by far the most intuitive and user friendly. Things simply make sense. I would even go as far as to say that Apple and their products have been good for my marriage. Why? Again, they are easy to use and more often than not they simply work.
When her crappy mp3 player gave out guess what? Ipod saved the day. When her brand new Motorola phone turned out to be a piece of shit that broke apart after a couple months, AT&T said that wasn’t covered under the warranty because it was not considered normal wear and tear. That’s right, you get a flip phone it’s totally abnormal to flip it open and shut to use the fucking thing. Got a replacement anyway and it turned out to be a piece of shit right out of the box when it wouldn’t charge. Got the run around from AT&T about returning it (I won’t talk about AT&T service that’s several blog entries on its own) and guess what? Iphone to the rescue. She’s been happy ever since, and that old Motorola is still sitting in a box of junk somewhere. One desktop and 2 laptops over the years gave all sorts of headaches. The last laptop still had issues even after Dell sent a technician out 4 or 5 times, and every component was either replaced or upgraded (the upgrades were by me not Dell after they refused to troubleshoot it any further) except for the LCD screen. They even replaced the palm rest with one that was refurbished. By refurbished, I mean they took an old used one and sanded it down with sand paper so it looked clean. Now whenever you rest your palm on it, you feel like your hand is resting on sand paper. They never did replace it after several complaints either. Then after a failed backup (absolutely my fault) and losing several gigabytes of data, guess what? Macbook to the rescue, while that Dell was donated to the burn pile at work on hazardous waste day 
. And the more Apple products she got the more flawlessly they worked together and the happier my life got. Sweet!
Steve was a visionary, more importantly, he gave life to his vision and shared it with the rest of us. I agree with Steve. I believe that a short life in the pursuit of true happiness (even if never really achieved) has to be more fulfilling than a long one pretending you are happy. I believe it but I haven’t been living it. Life is complicated, and there’s the propensity for us to overcomplicate it because there’s the expectation that things should be convoluted. So we tire easily fighting unnecessary wars against ourselves, we get weary, worn out, lose faith and hope, and soon we start to lie to ourselves and rationalize as we make compromises and find ourselves settling. Things get too tough and we get comfortable, complacent, and careless because it’s easier than constantly fighting. Our goals change, not because we have bigger dreams but because no one wants to keep chasing dreams they don’t actually believe are attainable anymore. We find the convenient version of happiness.
Most of the time we delineate our happiness by a measure of others’ expectations. It is more important to seem happy and successful than to actually be. And maybe everyone else would be happy to be where you are, but are you? Are you really happy? Is your life the white picket fence with 2.5 kids a family pet and a fuel efficient hybrid in the driveway? Is it wrong to want more than the average person? Not everyone is exceptional, some people in fact are merely average. Is that you? And if so, are you as average as you can be or are you still somehow far less than your average potential? Think about it! You haven’t even mastered being average. How sad is that shit?
I didn’t know him of course, but my impression of Steve following his career over the years is that he didn’t care so much if the world thought he was wrong when he already knew he was right. He had his vision and was committed to it fully, and he stayed committed until he knew what was needed to see it though, even if the rest of us didn’t quite understand. He would approve every decision in the process. He would never approve of close enough or be happy with almost there. He would never approve of settling for the convenient version of happiness. I’ve compromised for so long I don’t remember anymore what I really love. I did it to hold on to the people and things I love that I have now. I found happiness and lost myself trying to maintain it. I found a place where I said yes, this is enough happiness for me to get by, close enough to my real dream so I will be ok. I became a shell of the person I’ve always been, or that I always had the potential to be.
I tease my wife all the time about this. I asked her once while we were having a heated argument why she fell in love with me, why she married me. Without skipping a beat she said “Because you had potential!” At the time, I was offended by her response, because it was not the oversentimental cookie cutter response I was expecting. Just goes to show you shouldn’t ask questions you’re not prepared to know the real answers to. But the more I’ve thought about that and had time to reflect on it, she is absolutely right. I was a completely different person back then, full of potential and so sure of myself, so sure of where I was going and the things I wanted to do. Now, I’m not that guy anymore. I’m not the guy she fell in love with at all. And that’s not her fault, it’s not anyone’s fault but my own. When you’re not really happy with the way things are or love what you do, you don’t love yourself and it starts to affect the rest of your life. The longer you live the lie, the harder it is to correct, and the bigger the potential risk for severe damage the longer it takes to make that change. If you’re going to risk it all anyway, wouldn’t you prefer risking it to be truly happy?
- Konscious Vybz
