Remembering Steve Jobs, who would be 60 today

Had he lived, Apple’s legendary co-founder, Steve Jobs, would have hit 60 today, a birthday that’s being noted across social media feeds.

Remembering Steve, who would have turned 60 today. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” pic.twitter.com/0YD0gZ7jvm

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) February 24, 2015

Remembering Steve

No surprise that Steve Jobs is trending on Twitter today. Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote: “Remembering Steve, who would have turned 60 today. ‘The only way to do great work is to love what you do.’”

Cook last year remembered his friend by saying, “We honor him by continuing the work he loved so much.”

Steve Jobs (born 1955) was the guru of digital disruption, from the PC to the iPhone, from iTunes to the iPod, iPad, even Pixar. “Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” he once said. He was fortunate enough to be part of that process many times in his short life, setting events in motion that continue to change the world today. How can we remember him?

The good book

Jobs read one book every year, Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda. The book was so important to Jobs that he arranged for a copy to be given to each person who attended his funeral, as Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff confirms above.

“I knew that this was a decision [Jobs] made, and whatever it was, it was the last thing he wanted us all to think about,” said Benioff.

Given that Jobs wanted his friends and family to be inspired by the thoughts of Paramahansa Yogananda when he was laid to rest, it feels appropriate to share some of them again today, on what would have been the Apple co-founder’s sixtieth birthday.

These notions provide some sense of Steve’s inner world, and may help inspire the next generation to continue “denting the universe.” You can share your own memories at rememberingsteve@apple.com

Inspirations

You have come to earth to entertain and to be entertained.

“The great man doesn’t think he is great. Those who say they are great are not. And those who are great are too busy being great to think about their greatness.”

There is no difficulty that cannot be solved, provided you believe you have more power than your troubles, and you use that power to shatter your impediments.

“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.”

By not developing the faculty of intuition, you make wrong decisions, pick up the wrong business associates, and get caught up in wrong personal relationships. …Intuition will never make such a mistake. It will not look at the magnetic power of the eyes or at the attractive face or personality of a person, but will feel and perceive accurately in the heart what that person is really like.

“I have long exercised an honest introspection, the exquisitely painful approach to wisdom. Self- scrutiny, relentless observance of one’s thoughts, is a stark and shattering experience. It pulverizes the stoutest ego…”

Learn to be very active in this world, doing constructive work; but when you are through with your duties, turn off your nervous motor. Retire to the center of your being which is calmness… If you have a calm nervous system, you will have success in everything you undertake…

“The happiness of one’s own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one’s own happiness, the happiness of others.”

The divine order arranges our future more wisely than any insurance company.

Thanks for denting the universe, Mr. Jobs.

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