Taking the time to ask yourself...

It suddenly occurred to me last night... What do I miss in the life I am leading now compared to anytime before this moment? Who are the people I miss? Will they know that I miss them?

It helps to ask such questions once in a while, just so we appreciate what we have, and appreciate what we had but don't have anymore...

Is it just me?

I attended a Round Table Discussion event this evening by Proctor & Gamble. They organise this every year to reach out to graduating students from my university. I wasn't too sure what to expect but the topic "Think Global, Act Local" did look interesting and the line up of speakers was very credible so I figured why not...

It was an ok session... most of the sharing by the speakers followed by panel Q&A was ok... people were mostly asking about P&G's marketing stragegies, surviving as a global company with so many brands and all that... not too bad, but I guess I just wasn't that impressed (considering how we've seen some REAL SUPER speakers at IC)

Anyway, the Q&A was followed by dinner (GOOD FOOD!) cum networking. So they had tables for different functions within P&G and 1 or 2 employees per table to speak with us undergraduates and address our questions... I think I kind of scared the guy at my table cos I was asking quite a lot of questions...

Is this your first job? Why did you leave the previous one for this job? Does your degree matter in what you do? What do you do? Does P&G provide trainings? Is it compulsory or how do they encourage employees to take these up? How diverse is the workforce in P&G? How does P&G get involved with the local communities (CSR)? Are there internal postings outside of Singapore? Are the operations handled by P&G or outsourced (since the guy was in logistics)?

And I wanted to ask the HR people stuff like how they build the learning culture in the company, how they see the youths of today being able to cope with a diverse and team based work environment, how they identify with their values (which are quite similar to those of AIESEC coincidentally).. but yeah the HR people went off before I could bombard them....

But anyhow, what I noticed was really the type of questions I asked VS what some of the other undergrads asked...

What are working hours like, what is the dress code to work, what is the salary range, how much do the grades matter, will there be training if we go into a function not related to our degree... And the "best" questions of the night came from this guy to the HR hiring manager for Product Supply: Some of the people gave us some tips about the application process. Does it really help if we look at the Purpose, Vision and Principles of the company? What do you look for in a resume? Should we answer the online test according to who we are or really aligned to the values which the company are looking for? Like do it just for the sake of impressing the company? (I suspect this was why the HR manager wanted to go off before I could ask her questions... If I were doing HR and someone asked me questions like this, I would be so not impressed...)

but anyhow, yeah the experience definitely got me thinking... what I ask and seek to find out does seem different... the rest or you even probably think I'm quite silly to not ask about salary and what experiences they look for in recruiting...

but anyhow, I think after this bit of reflecting, I realise that perhaps it is simply because I look for that diverse, dynamic, challenging learning environment more than the material perks a job can offer... and I think that well.. I am happy with what I am looking for =)

I will get there

This is a very meaningful song by Boyz II Men... for all those out there searching for answers, searching for a path, searching for direction... we'll find it... we will get there in the end...

Oh…oh…ah…
Hey…
Yeah… I've been wanderin' 'round in the dark
Been lost somewhere where no light could shine on my heart
I have known a pain so deep
But I know my faith will free me [Get there]
And I'll get through this [Get there]
I'll find my way again
So don't tell me that it's over
'Cause each step just gets me closer

(I will get there) I will get there
(I will get there) I will get there somehow
Cross that river (Cross that river)
Nothing's stoppin' me now
I will get through the night (Oh, yes, I will)
And make it through to the other side
(Get there) Get there
(Get there) Get there

I've been in these chains for so long
I'll break free and I'll be there where I belong
Hold my head up high, I'll stand tall
And I swear this time I won't fall [Get there]
I will do this [Get there]
No matter what it takes
'Cause I know no limitations
And I'll reach my destination, I will get there

I will get there (I will get there)
I will get there (Ooh) somehow (Somehow)
Cross that river (Cross that river)
Nothing's stoppin' me now
I will get through the night
And make it through to the other side (Ooh, get there)
Get there (Get there) Get there

Well, the night is cold and dark
But somewhere the sun is shining
And I'll feel it shine on me
I'll keep on tryin', I'll keep on tryin'

I will get there (I will get there)
I will get there somehow
Cross that river (Cross that river)
Nothing's stoppin' me now
I will get through the night
And make it through to the other side
Get there, get there

I will get there (I will get there)
I will get there somehow (Somehow)
Cross that river (I'll cross that river for you)
Nothing's stoppin' me now (Oh…whoa…I)
I will get through (Through) the night
And make it through to the other side (Oh…ho…oh…ho…)
(Get there) Get there
(Ooh, get there) Get there (Whoa…oh…)

I will get there (I will get there)
I will get there somehow (Somehow)
Cross that river (I'll cross it for your love)
Nothing's stoppin' me now (No matter what)
I will get through the night (I will get through the night)
And make it through to the other side
(Get there) Get there
(Ooh, get there) Get there Get there Oh…ho…oh…
I'll get there

Emails...

After letting the emails in my outlook inbox accummulate past the 2000 figure (and this is just in the main inbox... it excludes all the rest within my sub-folders), I decided that a virtual spring cleaning was very much needed...

So I just spent the last hour or so clearing emails.. for now, I only have 1190 emails in the main inbox after much sorting and deleting... I will have to go through my sub-folders after this (since some emails I transferred from main to sub for classification sake)

anyway, in the midst of clearing the emails, I of course have to open some of these emails to see what the content is (email subject titles aren't that descriptive after all) and it was interesting to see how things and people have changed and moved along with time...

from emails congratulating the team on our appointment as MC 0607; to emails from the 0506 team discussing how to do transition to the 0607 team; to emails from the 0607 then-elects to each other (some of these emails start with "Dear LCP elects" hehe) asking about plans and ideas; to excited emails about the selection of our international MC; to excited emails of incoming trainees or successful events or meetings; to emails that sound so charged with emotion as people fight for what they believe in; to emails where the MC 0607 makes decisions after being updated on all possible scenarios; to crappy emails with content that you just can't help but smile at....

Looking back, it has been 9 months of journeying together as a team and what a remarkable 9 months it has been... what an amazing story it would be if we put down all that we have gone through in these 9 months...

Even the emails tell a story... and what a wonderful story it tells... it is a story about growth... growth of individuals, growth of the team, growth of our own legacy...

and I cannot wait to start clearing my email inbox again 6 months from now when the term 0607 is over... for then our story will be pretty much over...

then again, I think we will realise by then that it isn't that much of a story... well maybe a story for us... but all in all it's just another chapter in the book titled "AIESEC in Singapore"

Meaningful words...

I found Dey's blog and found these really meaningful extracts, which Dey found from someone else's blog...

so... enjoy :)
_________________________________________________________________________

You can`t make someone love you, all you can do is be someone who can be loved, the rest is up to the person to realize your worth. We spend too much time looking for the right person to love or finding fault with those we already love, when instead we should be perfecting the love we give.

Free your heart from hatret;
Free your mind from worries;
Live simply.

Give more.

Expect less.

My hope for you is that you will finally discover the happiness within you.

When you feel down because you didn`t get what you want, just sit tight and be happy, because I thought of something better to give you.
My friendship.

It is like wine, it gets better as it grows older.

When something happens to you, good or bad, consider what it means.
There`s a purpose to life`s events, to teach you how to laugh more or not to cry too loud.

Extracts from a poem by Heinz Shalloff.

Have you ever...

have you ever closed your eyes after working on the laptop or reading your notes and tutorials for a long time, and felt literally the waves of tiredness wash over you?

I have, and I am always surprised when it happens...

have you ever lay down on your bed after a long day of meetings and work and felt the waves of tiredness wash over you?

I have, and sometimes I find that liberating...

have you ever closed your eyes and felt the wind blow in your face, and feel the waves of relaxation wash over you?

I have, and I love that feeling...

have you ever felt the wind blow away the waves of tiredness?

I have, and I remind myself to give thanks for the moment...

Life is made up of little moments...

Have you ever noticed?

You Raise Me Up...

"You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up... to more than I can be."
You Raise Me Up by Josh Groban

Be thankful if you have found that someone who has that effect and impact on you in your life...

Be proud of yourself if you are that someone in another person's life...

My Wish

Rascal Flatts is a good band...

hehe... been taking some time out to enjoy quite a bit of their music.. Love their songs!!

anyway... this is for everyone out there who cares and that I care for... I think I am rediscovering the joy of being able to shed off some layers of that thick outer shell... thanks guys... :)

My Wish

I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slow
And each road leads you where you want to go
And if you’re faced with the choice and you have to choose
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you
And if one door opens to another door closed
I hope you keep on walkin’ ‘til you find the window
If it’s cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile
But more than anything, more than anything

Chorus

My wish for you
Is that this life becomes all that you want it to
Your dreams stay big, your worries stay small
You never need to carry more than you can hold
And while you’re out there gettin’ where you’re gettin’ to
I hope you know somebody loves you
And wants the same things too
Yeah, this is my wish

I hope you never look back but you never forget
All the ones who love you
And the place you left
I hope you always forgive and you never regret
And you help somebody every chance you get
Oh, you find God’s grace in every mistake
And always give more than you take
But more than anything, yeah more than anything

This is my wish
I hope you know somebody loves you
May all your dreams stay big

Engineering Materials

I remember in Year 2 or 3, one of the modules was talking about materials and the strength of materials. And I remember there was something called cyclic loading, which is especially common in testing components used in aeroplanes. The component is subjected to a load, say tensile stress, that increased from zero to a maximum value within a certain time, and then is decreased to zero again within a certain time. So the cycle is repeated many many times to investigate when failure will take place.

Some materials don't withstand cyclic loading too well. They fail quite soon into the cycles. Other materials are a lot better, either because of their natural properties or that they have been reinforced (by material or by structure)

I also remember that there is a method of strengthening some materials which is quite interesting. The material is subject to a load (i.e. stress or heat) and then after that relaxed. And because the load induced more stresses and stress lines within the materials, they eventually prevent further cracks or stress lines from propagating throughout the material. So by subjecting the material to an initial load and initial stresses, the material becomes stronger and can take even more load eventually. So it doesn't mean that initial stress and cracks will always lead to failure of the material; sometimes it makes the material a lot stronger.

I also remember that in crack propagation, while many cracks and stress lines in the materials can strengthen it, sometimes all it takes is just one crack in the material for absolute failure. One crack to start snacking its way through the internal structure, moving quickly through, inflicting simple and direct damage.

I never really liked the materials part of the engineering courses (I didn't take chemistry in Junior College) but one can't deny how relevant it is in the world today...

Chilling out...

If you don't consciously think about it, you never realise how long you've known some of the people around you...

Took some time off yesterday afternoon to meet up with some of the wushu mates ... went for lunch at Wisma followed by a walk-walk around...

key discovery points of the day:
- We've known each other for like 6 years! Since 2001!! Gosh!
- You can never squish the crappiness out of people like us, no matter how old we are



- It feels so fulfilling to be with a group of Singaporeans and be able to have discussions around things like politics, children psychology (thanks to Kunz and his the BBC show "Child of our Time") and environmental issues (marine biologist VS cynical lawyer)
- the flower decorations along Orchard road is an OK move to impress the IMF delegates. But the decoration of trees with red and white polka dots is SO SO SO WRONG!

Anyhow, it was a good outing with good food, good people and good conversations...

Yes! I have a personal life after all! and a bunch of cool friends :)

One Phone Call

It's amazing how much difference just one phone call can make in one's life...

just when everything was going in its usual routine, your phone starts ringing... thinking it's something work related again, you pick it up without really glancing at the number (not that it matters cos I didn't recognise the country code)

when you say "Hello?" this strangely familiar voice answers "Hello!" and a laugh... and you run through the database of names and voices in your head to try and place that... somehow it doesn't work so you ask "Who is this?"

and when you finally know who it is? Gosh that feeling!! It's like walking around on the streets and bumping into someone who means so much to you just like that!

I honestly felt so so so so happy at the moment I learnt who it was...

Thanks for calling! It was a great way for me to voice some of my thoughts, get some inputs and advice as well as to share from one friend to another =)

My IC 2006 Bring Back

Finally decided to take some time out to relax a bit.... I'm now alone at home with the radio on after a shower... and it only seems apt to take some time to think...

This IC 2006 has been an interesting experience, simply because it's like going there wearing a different set of glasses (not that I wear any but you get the point)... things really do take on a different perspective...

so I decided to put down some of the key points that have left an impression on me:

You can tell about people's personalities through the way they take photos
It's amusing how different people look for different things to take photos of. For me, most of my photos contain scenary, buildings, other people, everything except myself... You probably may not even guess that I've been to that country, simply because I hardly appear in my own photos. I look to capture things the way I see it, which is why I am behind the lens.
Yet some people take mainly photos of people; people are the foreground and the background is not that important. Perhaps I should learn from them and be more open about showing the/my relationships with those around me.

Diversity in AIESEC also means Diversity in communication
I love the diversity in AIESEC, not just because it presents so many perspectives on issues but simply because there is so much to learn from others in communication styles. Through the facilitators, the speeches, the conversations with the PAI and AI, the delegates, the chair, I can pick up so many tips on how to address crowds and capture their attention. I pick up pointers on how to bring messages across by using stories and by asking questions.

The impressive and irrepressible nature of the Human Spirit in everyone
At every international conference, I meet people who face the greatest of challenges back home in their AIESEC chapters. I meet people who face challenges at IC itself in being able to understand and communicate with other delegates. And what always impresses me is how these people simply never say die, how their passion drives them on so strongly. Everyone at IC is a hero or heroine in his or her own way and I salute them for that.

The Bonds that Bind
It's amazing how friendships made at a 10 day conference stay the same or become even stronger after a 6 months gap with hardly any online communication. Some may say that it isn't very possible to make very good friends in such a short time but to me, AIESEC is proof that it is possible. I think it stems from knowing how each of us are going back home to fight our own different battles, yet sub-consciously being aware that the battles aren't that different in essence after all. We may feel lonely, misunderstood, super challenged at times, but we can always seek solace in the network that is out there and in the bonds that bind.

for sure the sessions, the trainings and the content have left an impression on me... but let's face it.. life is transient, life is fragile...

More often than not, it's the softer and invisible things in life that speak the most to us, and stay with us for the longest time...

so much has happened...

So much has happened since the last blog posting...

Prep for IC, IC itself, prep for Jump Start, Jump Start itself, catching up with school work, family stuff...

Things always happen for a reason...

I'm blogging randomly it seems...

anyhow, I hope my voice is back by Wednesday night... I have an interview on Thursday morning!!

*sigh sigh*

Caught in the wave of things...

that's exactly how I feel like now...

the list of things to do doesn't seem to run short, it seems to add on to itself...

sometimes, I feel guilty that I would let myself get washed away in the wave of things... what happened to enjoying a slow leisurely walk, or a random chat with a friend... everyone's wrapped in their own little coccoon...

will be looking forward to Poland in few days time... at least a short break before the wave comes back...

Just wish I knew magic so I can pack at the speed of light...

and boy will I miss my hamster while I'm away...

Keeping the Dream Alive

From Freiheit's "Keeping the dream alive"

The hopes we had were much too high
Way out of reach but we had to try
No need to hide no need to run
'Cause all the answers come one by one
The game will never be over
Because we're keeping the dream alive


Hang in there, guys :)

The Giving Tree

I think at any point, we are meant to be both the tree and the boy...

So...

If you are the boy, have you found your tree?
If you say you haven't, have you searched hard enough for the opportunities?

If you are the Giving Tree, how much have you given?
And how much more can you give?


The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

Once there was a giving tree who loved a little boy.
And everyday the boy would come to play
Swinging from the branches, sleeping in the shade
Laughing all the summer’s hours away.
And so they love,
Oh, the tree was happy.
Oh, the tree was glad.

But soon the boy grew older and one day he came and said,
"Can you give me some money, tree, to buy something I’ve found?"
"I have no money," said the tree, "Just apples, twigs and leaves."
"But you can take my apples, boy, and sell them in the town."
And so he did and
Oh, the tree was happy.
Oh, the tree was glad.

But soon again the boy came back and he said to the tree,
"I’m now a man and I must have a house that’s all my home."
"I can’t give you a house" he said, "The forest is my house."
"But you may cut my branches off and build yourself a home"
And so he did.
Oh, the tree was happy.
Oh, the tree was glad.

And time went by and the boy came back with sadness in his eyes.
"My life has turned so cold," he says, "and I need sunny days."
"I’ve nothing but my trunk," he says, "But you can cut it down
And build yourself a boat and sail away."
And so he did and
Oh, the tree was happy.
Oh, the tree was glad.

And after years the boy came back, both of them were old.
"I really cannot help you if you ask for another gift."
"I’m nothing but an old stump now. I’m sorry but I’ve nothing more to give"
"I do not need very much now, just a quiet place to rest,"
The boy, he whispered, with a weary smile.
"Well", said the tree, "An old stump is still good for that."
"Come, boy", he said, "Sit down, sit down and rest a while."
And so he did and
Oh, the trees was happy.
Oh, the tree was glad.

You and Me by Lifehouse

I know posting song lyrics never is useful cos you can always google for them anywhere else... but I like this song...

You and Me
by Lifehouse

What day is it? And in what month?
This clock never seemed so alive
I can't keep up and I can't back down
I've been losing so much time

Cause it's you and me and all of the people with nothing to do
Nothing to lose
And it's you and me and all of the people
And I don't know why, I can't keep my eyes off of you

All of the things that I want to say just aren't coming out right
I'm tripping on words
You've got my head spinning
I don't know where to go from here

Cause it's you and me and all of the people with nothing to do
Nothing to prove
And it's you and me and all of the people
And I don't know why, I can't keep my eyes off of you

There's something about you now
I can't quite figure out
Everything she does is beautiful
Everything she does is right

Cause it's you and me and all of the people with nothing to do
Nothing to lose
And it's you and me and all of the people
And I don't know why, I can't keep my eyes off of you
and me and all of the people with nothing to do
Nothing to prove
And it's you and me and all of the people
And I don't know why, I can't keep my eyes off of you

What day is it?
And in what month?
This clock never seemed so alive

Out of balance...

my life is lacking balance and discipline!!

time to change that... tomorrow marks the start of whole new training regime...

\

Tomorrow is 4th of July... and it's freaking hot!

Yes... tmr is Independence Day... Why do they call it independence when things are still being decided by someone who shares the same name as a piece of vegetation? ah well... i'm being crappy here...

sitting in the NTU AIESEC office... the air con has seriously died... when you turn it on, it rumbles and spews out air... well minute amounts of it... you can vaguely see the poster on the opposite wall flutter... strangely enough you can't sense any no matter where you stand and whatever whiffs of breath coming out of it isn't cold... anyway it's off now... opening the windows and the door has a much better effect on cooling the room...

must be the heat... feeling quite lethargic now... i wonder what the temperature is outside... i wish i could be at the beach... in a kayak out on the sea...

i wish i wish....

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

'You've got to find what you love' Jobs says
Stanford Report, June 14, 2005

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.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal.

Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

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?

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.
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.

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 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 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:

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 san 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.

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, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. 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. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. 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. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "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.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

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.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.