“The Three Stories & Me”
In the 2005 Commencement Address for Stanford University, Steve Jobs offers his valuable insight to the graduates as they begin to depart on their own journeys in life. Jobs commencement speech consists of three personal stories that displays the long road of life, with all of its twists and turns. These three stories highlight how you cannot know what the future holds, you only know what is in your past and present. It is up to you to use your past and present to your advantage, to help shape your own future. While listening to Jobs three stories, I could already relate my own personal life to the themes incorporated and intertwined within these stories. The struggles that I have overcome in my current life, can correlate to examples Jobs used in his stories and have helped me to reach my Senior Thesis plan.
Connecting the Dots
The first story that Steve Jobs speaks about is about: “Connecting the Dots”. Jobs delves deep into his own personal life and recounts many of the key factors that led him to where he is in life. He starts at the very beginning, with being put up for adoption and how the first family that wanted to adopt him, changed their minds last minute because they wanted a baby girl. The next family that wanted to adopt him were his parents, but his biological mother did not want to give him to his parents due to neither of them being college graduates. They promised though, that he would get a college education and she eventually relented with that promise. He then spoke about how he went to Reed College and how unhappy he was with his college classes during his first semester, and he could not justify continuing to take these classes due to the financial burden they placed on his parents. So, Jobs dropped out of college after 6 months, but continued to sneak into the classes that were of interest to him, like calligraphy. He would bunk on his friend’s bedroom floors, would collect glass coke bottles to earn money for food and would walk 7 miles on Sundays to the local Temple to get one good meal during the week.
Looking back, all of these factors and circumstances in Jobs life, led him to the path that he created for himself. Each of these moments were “dots” in Jobs life that would connect to his future. At the time though, he didn’t know what these dots were leading him towards. For example, the calligraphy class that Jobs took interest in, would later help him develop the typography interface for the Macintosh. All these dots in your life may not meaning anything in your past or present but could come full circle in your future. Jobs ended his first story with this quote: “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
Connecting My Own Dots
Jobs first story he told, had a personal impact on me. In my own life, I have already looked at how some of my own personal “dots” have affected my life. At the time that these “dots” happened though, I didn’t know how they would affect my future and I wondered how they could possibly benefit me. My own struggle that became my own personal dot started at Stockton University in 2016.
In 2016, I started my freshmen year of college at Stockton University as a Criminal Justice Major. I had originally applied to The College of New Jersey late as a Criminology major, but due to applying late, I did not make the cut. So, I chose my second choice of Stockton University and tried to get used to my Criminal Justice class. However, while taking the class, I realized it wasn't what I had originally expect and wasn’t thrilled by it. I had intended to stick out my major though and hope the other classes for the major got more interesting. However, that did not happen due to me trying to be active on Stockton’s campus. I had decided to join an intramural co-ed indoor soccer team, that played weekly matches on the basketball court. During a game in early October, a guy on the opposing team rammed into me and I fell backwards. My head slammed painfully into the hard floor of the basketball court. Later that night, my mom drove to the campus to take me to the ER and I was diagnosed with a concussion. However, during the next few months, we learnt the true extent of my concussion and I was unable to return to Stockton University for the rest of the year.
During the next two years, I worked on recovering from my mild-traumatic brain injury and eventually took some classes at Brookdale Community College to continue my education and gain some college credits. Due to the bad experience of my brain injury at Stockton University (among other things), I decided that I did not want to re-attend Stockton once I was recovered enough to physically attend a school. I also realized that I did not wish to pursue a major in Criminal Justice, and instead wanted to focus on a major that focused on my love of technology and creative mindset. So, I started applying to colleges as a transfer student in the Fall of 2017 and once again applied for The College of New Jersey, but this time as an Interactive Multimedia major. I eventually got my acceptance letter in the mail for TCNJ and have been attending the school since Fall 2018.
This experience is my own personal dot in my life. I could not see at the time how my concussion could benefit me in anyway. However, I was able to apply for my first-pick school of TCNJ once again and this time got in. I also was able to reevaluate my major Criminal Justice early on and was able to find a major that was better suited for me in Interactive Multimedia. While I wish I could have avoided a concussion, it did bring some unexpected changes to my life.
Love & Loss
The second story that Steve Jobs talks about he labels: “Love and Loss”. In this story, Jobs speaks about his love for work, creating and innovation in his life. He talks about starting Apple in his garage, the company becoming its big name, and then being fired from his own company by the Board of Directors. He stated, “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.” At first, he didn’t know what to do and where to head in his life now. Soon though, it slowly dawned onto him that he was still in love with being creative and an entrepreneur, and that didn't have to stop with his firing from Apple. So, in the next five years he created his company NeXT and Pixar, known for making the animated move Toy Story. His success in these areas would then lead him back to Apple, when NeXT was bought by them for their technology. As he ended the story, he said: ”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.”
My Own Love & Loss
Jobs second story, also connects with the story surrounding my concussion. Since I was young, I always valued education and strived to do my best in school. I knew I wanted to go to a good college and get a proper education. However, I saw this dream start to fade away with my mind-traumatic brain injury.
Due to my continued symptoms of my brain injury, I had to sign a letter to Stockton University that dropped me from their classes for the Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 semester. Early on, my family hoped that I would at least be able to return for the Spring semester, but that it soon became obvious that it was impossible based on my symptoms. This situation quickly became one of my worst nightmares and went against my core values for education. I remember being emotionally upset while signing the letter to Stockton about the Fall and Spring semesters. At this point, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
A goal soon became apparent for me though, that I would continue my college education in the near future. To do this, I knew I had to continue my physical, vestibular and vision therapies, while also continuing to see different doctors to get help on my symptoms. I also had to make sure I that I was resting properly during all of this, for my brain’s sake. This motivation led me to eventually find a doctor that had a medication that helped me to control my symptoms better. The medication over time, would build up in my system and help to fight against my symptoms. These combined efforts allowed me to take a Summer online class at Brookdale in 2017, to test and see how I would fare with a class once again. I was able to handle this class and in the Fall semester I was able to take 3 classes at Brookdale Community College. I then felt confident enough to apply for The College of New Jersey. This overall experience then led me to find the school that I loved, TCNJ. It’s similar to what Jobs stated, “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.” My brick though, was a concussion.
Death
Jobs third and final story he simply labels as about: “Death”. In this story, Jobs speaks about how he used death to help make the big choices in his life and to continue living a life that he is happy about. However, his scare of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer disrupted this and showed his mortality. Due to the area that the tumor was located in, the doctor originally told Jobs to that he would have months to live and to get his affairs in order. Everyone thinks that they have tens of years to get their affairs in order, but he was told to simplify it to months. After a biopsy of the tumor though, it was discovered that the cancer that Jobs had was rare and was curable with proper treatment. At the time, it was the closest he ever had been to death and it reminded him that death is inevitable to everyone. He ended his story with by reminding everyone that, “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.”
While I have personally have never had a near death experience, I can relate it to my symptoms with my brain injury. The symptoms brought on by my brain injury ranged in different ways and changed throughout my recovery. For the first week or so, I had trouble thinking of certain words to say and then having my brain connect them to my mouth to speak. I also developed what my Mom called “double-talk”, where I would repeat certain words while I was talking. These symptoms luckily didn’t last the whole time, but other ones did. My emotions had been haywire and would get very angry easily over anything, even emptying the dishwasher. My vision had been injured and I had to get glasses to help remedy it some. Also, I had to have vision therapy to teach myself to withstand certain visual cues again and how to read without missing several words in a sentence. Then there were my other symptoms of light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, migraines, balance issues, and several other issues that persisted. I had to go take visual therapy, physical therapy and vestibular therapy to deal with my symptoms, and it was hard to deal with everything happening. I sometimes was in a dark place and truly looked at how human I was going through these things.
After dealing with all of that and recovering enough to restart my college education, I didn’t want to take my life for granted. I wanted to live my life to the fullest and not miss out on anything ever again. During that dark time in my life, I knew what I wanted in my life. I wanted to continue my college education and not be held back by my brain injury. That motivated me to try and recover from my brain injury and continue my dream.
But How Does This Relate To My Senior Thesis?
After listening to Steve Jobs commencement and relating his stories to my own life, I feel that it helps me recenter myself on my journey towards completing my Senior Thesis. His stories had me reevaluate my own past and present, to discover the necessary mentality I need inside myself to complete this task. I need to look at the “dots” that I have collected in my own past and present, to help me possibly build the foundation of my Senior Thesis, “Modernizing Old Advertisements”. For example, I can look back at my old projects that I completed in my Digital Media class, to help me with Photoshop or look at old techniques I had used in these projects. Also, I have already connected with a current “dot”, my Marketing Professor for my Advertising class. I sent an email to Dr. Brechman and asked her if I could possibly ask her advertising question that may arise during my Senior Thesis development.
I also have to make sure that I keep same level of motivation I have for more Senior Thesis, just like I had with returning to my college education. To be able to complete a project that I enjoy, I need to have the work drive inside myself. For my Senior Thesis, I have to narrow down the idea a bit more and find exactly what motivates me about this topic. The key that will help me in my Senior Thesis development, is controlling my motivation.
Finally, I have to not take my Senior thesis for granted and look in all different areas while developing it, even ones that may not seem related or relevant. For this, I have to not follow what my brain may be telling me and instead follow my courage to explore new and interesting topics. Just like Steve Jobs with taking that one calligraphy class, I may find information that can help me build my Senior Thesis. Sometimes the answers we may seek, come in unexpected places.
