The Wow and How of Steve Jobs

I regret to inform you that I have never owned an Apple product. And, I'm not proud of that fact.

It's not as if I don't recognize the brilliance of invention that was the spirit of the man who used computing to transform the way we live, but I've always owned a PC (silly me).

I am embarrassed to admit that I've never downloaded from iTunes. I have indeed watched ToyStory which of course was a Pixar-produced animation created after Steve Jobs purchased the Graphics group from Lucas Films Computer Graphics prior to it becoming Pixar as a result of co-producing, financing and distributing by Disney if Wikipedia has its facts right.

Still the news of this man's death made me a little sad. It was a strange sad. Afterall, he is a stranger. It was a mixture of genuine regret that a really smart guy who had revolutionized the way we communicate (with a lot of help from other really smart people) had to die of cancer so young. But, that's not new. In addition, there  was also quite a huge portion of envy at how he managed to do what so many of us have not; he got so many aspects of his life together. Then, add in a heaping dollop of wonder at how some individuals have everything it takes to do what they were sent here to do, and then they just do it, while most of us may just never figure it out.

It's not as if the world isn't peppered with an ever-diminishing cast of  individualists. But, so few of them manage to focus their creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and outright smarts at the right time and place, and then take a leap of faith to create something out of nothing that brings change that dominos throughout the world in a positive way. It takes a lot of incredible variables to come together to do what Steve Jobs did which is not to take away a single thing from his own brilliance as perhaps the biggest variable.

To think that Jobs then translated all of it into a challenging, passion-filled existence that resulted in a lot of money for himself and his family, and more importantly providing challenging employment for about 49,000 knowledge-based workers and countless others in the goal of birthing innovative and exceedingly user-friendly tech gadgets  is, well, breathtaking. Or so I see, when I look at everyone who is using an iPhone, iPod, iPad or a Mac. His entire life can be summed up in two words:  "Wow" and "How?"

The 88-year-old woman who owns the property I live on was given an iPad by one of her techie sons and she loves it. She uses it to do her crosswords. She was able to see a photo of her new great grandaughter born in a different part of BC and she stays up-to-date on world events.

She also has an iPod shuffle that enables her to walk around the house listening to CBC's Anna Maria Tremonti do her ever fascinating interviews or to Stuart McLean on Sunday mornings, the wee headphones snugly fitted into her hard-of-hearing ears.

When I listened to Jobs' 2005 commencement speech that, as we all know, has been plastered on every medium from radio to Twitter, my focus was on his focus on listening to one's inner voice. Every day he said, he'd look in the mirror and ask himself, "If I knew today was going to be my last, would I be happy doing what I'm doing?" THAT my friends is a sobering question. Especially, if you're not so sure or it's an outright No way. He said that if his answer was "No" for too many days in a row, he knew he needed to change things.  How you doing with your own answer to that?

Possibly, it's just the mid-life crisis thing in overdrive but lately I can't even figure out exactly where I want to live, let alone what I want to do for money. When you've had children, at least you might feel (which may or may not be accurate) that you've accomplished something. But, when you haven't had children, it leaves your entire life as the only canvas you have to work with, be responsible for, and face. For better or worse, as you know, all of our choices have led each of us to where we are in the present moment.

Which is why I found the insights Jobs shared in his 2005 Stanford commencement address so timely as I was driving around Vancouver this week, through every neighborhood, all possibilities open, trying to hear my own inner voice about where I might want to live. Towards the end of three days,  instead of asking where in the Lower Mainland, I began to ask whether moving back to Vancouver, at this time, is really even as smart an idea as I have been coveting for some time now.

I'm not sure. I think the answer is still yes. I'm just wondering about the timing. And timing, my friends, truly is everything!

The Blue Factor

I've never kept a journal consistently but I have, usually when things are not going so well, or when I feel that I need to be a little more enlightened as to how lucky I am, I write stuff down.

Sometimes I do the whole gratitude thing and that really does have an almost instantaneous effect on shifting my vision towards the positive.

I'll write things down because I'm thinking perhaps if I write it down the confusion I have around something will be more clear in print and at the time it usually never is. But, going back months and years later, its message is often a neon sign.

The best thing about writing things down in a designated space (preferably a journal, not a telephone pole) is that it's a constant reminder that life is change and that can take away fear related to change and lead to active changes being made.

Last year about this time, I was living on Robson Street and after six months, I could not seem to find work. It didn't make any sense. I have the experience in Communications. I have excellent references, etc. etc. The thing is, every time I thought about doing communications, I had this sinking feeling. Been there. Done That. And, I was becoming very depressed after not being depressed for quite a few years in what has been a re-occurring, most challenging theme in my life as a result of a mood disorder that mainly gets expressed as depression.

I had a great group of friends. I loved living on Robson Street a mere block from Stanley Park. But, inside, there was this niggling, sinking, murmur, as if I'd forgotten something. It was constantly there but I couldn't figure out what it was. It was like an urging to do - something - but I didn't know what it was. I did know, even voiced it out loud, that whatever it was required more than just "getting a job" to get rid of it.

Call it mid-life crisis, call it what happens when change is necessary, call it your soul's expression tickling you from the inside out, but it's a reminder that when that inner compass is pointing North and you insist on persisting in the same direction that you've been going, it's the jumping off point and you need to take it to SWIM.

It's like doing a canon ball in the middle of some fancy pool party.

I thought about that this morning for some reason. I thought about how much has changed in the past year and how so many of the unvoiced desires that were muddled in my head last June have somehow come into being now because they were there and so was the intent to unearth them.