Chapter Two: Love and Loss- Steve Jobs May 11, 2009

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 returned 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.

Lonely Seniors in Nursing Homes:Where is the love? April 15, 2009

Does our responsibility to parents and grandparents end after we send them off to a nursing home or some senior living community? When the housing and care is paid for, do we still need to visit, send letters, cards or make phone calls? After we pass up on the burden of care, to whom do we pass on the responsibility of love? The loneliness and abandonment appears to be more painful than the physical pain some of them endure. Shirley, one of the seniors whom I have particularly become close to at the Nursing home I volunteer at, beams with joy whenever she sees me. She waited for a visit from me during Easter but I did not show. I was under the impression that she will be spending this special day with any of her five kids and 23 grandchildren. But she spent Easter like any other day in the nursing home; no calls or visit, just by herself with an old tv. I felt really bad for not showing up, but then again, could not understand why her own family could not give her a simple call.

Most of the seniors at the nursing home hardly receive any visits and look on jealously when others do. It is hard to think these parents neglected their responsibilities to their children and are merely getting a payback. I wonder if the nuclear family has become so rigid that, grandparents are not considered immediate family anymore. What I’ve learned being around elderly people is, when one reaches the advanced stages of aging, more than material things, they value friendship, companionship or any caring relationship that makes them feel wanted and valued human beings; not some used good. There is a reason why we punish criminals by socially isolating them from society. Some seniors who suffer similar fate are hard working people who gave their all to raise their families and deserve the common courtesy of being loved and appreciated!

Somali Pirates: Their Fight Against Western Nuclear Waste Dump and Overfishing in their Seas!! April 13, 2009

As the old saying goes, there is always “two sides to every story.” Unfortunately, the media coverage of the capture and rescue of the US captain has been grossly one sided. The issue of piracy in Somalia has largely been blamed and oversimplified as one of the woes of a failed state. While I don’t disagree with the former, I think if the issue of piracy is now at the forefront of international debate, then all sides of this saga should be examined, including the pirates’ own side of the story.

While western countries decry Somalia as a fallen state, the truth is they have not missed a golden opportunity to exploit the situation in this poor country. Somalia’s seas have become the dumping ground for nuclear waste, while they also loot Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood.

A 2005 report released by the UN following the Tsunami, revealed that nuclear and hazardous wastes dumped on Somalia’s shores were infecting Somalis in the coastal areas. The report revealed the existence of uranium radioactive waste, leads, heavy metals like cadmium and mercury, industrial wastes, hospital wastes, chemical wastes, you name it. Nick Nuttal, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) remarked to voanews.com that “It’s not rocket science to know why they’re doing it because of the instability there.” He remarked that “on average, it cost European companies $2.50 per ton to dump the wastes on Somalia’s beaches rather than $250 a ton to dispose of the wastes in Europe. He also said the Asian tsunami dislodged and smashed open the drums, barrels, and other containers, spreading the contaminants as far away as 10 or more kilometers inland. Health problems currently faced by Somalians from the wastes include problems ranging from “acute respiratory infections to dry, heavy coughing, mouth bleedings, and abdominal hemorrhages, what they described as unusual skin chemical reactions.

According to voanews.com Somali officials said the country was vulnerable to illegal dumping, as Africa’s longest coastline is not patrolled and the country has no coast guards, or health officials and facilities to test whatever is inside the containers.

The truth is Somali pirates emerged out of growing frustration with the exploitation of their coastal waters. Local fishermen lost their livelihoods in a country which already sufferers from mass starvation. Reports indicate that, the so called “pirates” are ordinary fishermen who have decided to police Somali seas in attempts to keep the exploiters away. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters… We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas.” It is not enough for Obama to pledge to fight piracy at sea, but to also address the exploitation by foreign countries in Somalia.

As Johann Hari nicely put it “Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn’t act on those crimes – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, we begin to shriek about “evil.” If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause – our crimes – before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia’s criminals.”

PLEASE COMMENT! I WANT TO ALSO KNOW YOUR OPINION!!

On Life: Teaching a 40yr Old Iliterate to Read and Write! March 29, 2009

Someone has said that there is no such thing as functional illiteracy; because when a person is illiterate, he is not functional—Theodore Roosevelt

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a woman asking if I would be willing to teach a 40yr friend of her father to read and write.  I had posted my resume on some tutoring websites stating that I would be willing to offer tutoring help for Bio, Chem, Eng, etc. I knew it was possible for me to get emails from parents soliciting help for their kids but I had never anticipated getting one that would require me to actually teach someone how to read and write more or less an adult practically for scratch.

I was a little bit nervous about how to respond to the email. Deep within me I knew there was no question as to whether I would do it. I just had a little self doubt about my own capabilities to achieve this task and what it would mean once I said “yes.”  If there was anything I could be sure of was the fact that by teaching this person to read and write, I would be introducing them to a whole new world. This simple thought pushed me to accept the challenge.

I got a reply shortly after I accepted the tutoring offer, stating that Dan the person I was going to be helping was extremely shy and felt embarrassed about his situation. He was also particular skeptical about learning because he was afraid whoever was going to teach him would think he is stupid.  He had dropped out of high school and got into the work force and never once went back to school. I figured that was a long time ago. Probably before or around the time I was born. I am 21 years old.

Anyways, I would be having my first meeting with Dan in two days. I am very excited about our meeting. I cannot say the same about the help that is being offered to illiterates in the country. According to Chris Hedges, “there are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.”

Finding the right text and work book to use has been a journey in of itself. I have performed hundreds of searches on the web to get any resources that could be available to no avail. I think there has to be a conscious effort to help people like Dan who are still willing to give themselves a chance to be much more productive in life.  It’s not only important to make sure no child is left behind but also, no adult is forgotten! There ought to be government sponsored programs to help adult illiterates in today’s society. As Timothy Fortune says “men may be spoiled by education, even as they are spoiled by illiteracy. Education is the preparation of the mind for future work; hence men should be educated with special reference to the work.”