15 Seriously Disturbing Facts About Your Job

How many hours does the average person commute per year?

How much weight will you gain at your current job?

How many hours will you work in your lifetime?

The answer to all three of those questions is: a lot. These are just some of many depressing facts about the typical job today.

1-80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs.

2-The average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime.

3-Couples in which one partner spends 10+ hours more than usual at work divorce at twice the average rate

4-There isn't much job security. On average, Americans hold seven to eight different jobs before age 30.

5-25% of employees say work is their main source of stress and 40% say their job is "very or extremely stressful"

6-25% of employees say work is their main source of stress and 40% say their job is "very or extremely stressful"

7-Each year, the average American spends over 100 hours commuting


8-10,000 workers per year drop dead at their desks as a result of 60- to 70-hour work weeks in Japan. The phenomenon is known as “karoshi"


9-Aside from traffic accidents while commuting, falling from heights is the No. 1 cause of death at work (19%). Being struck by moving or falling objects accounts for 17% of work fatalities

10-Women make only 77.5 cents for every dollar that men earn

11-15% of director-level women have slept with their bosses -- and 37% of them got promoted for it


12-Nearly half of America has gained weight at their current job; 28% have gained more than 10 lbs, 13% have gained more than 20 lbs


13-64% of Americans canceled vacations last year. One-third did it for work-related reasons even though most felt they were more in need of a vacation than the year before

14-In the United States, workers take an average of 57 percent of their vacation days. That means most of us voluntarily give up about 50 percent of the time off we're legally allowed so we can continue to work instead.


15-25% of people check into work hourly while on vacation, via email and phone. 59% said they check work during traditional holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. Basically, work is everywhere.

Find out how you can be happy at work

Want your work to feel more fulfilling? Just do a little soul searching, says Dan Buettner of Psychology Today.

Specifically, ask yourself ten questions. "Examining the answers will help you to maximize the aspects of your job which contribute to overall workplace satisfaction," Buettner writes.

Here's what to ask:

• How is this work important?

• What can I contribute?

• What excites me?

• How can this work challenge me in an ongoing way?

• Would I do this work even if I didn't get paid?

• How does this address my passions?

• Would I think about my work even when I'm not working

• Does this work make me feel proud?

• Can I achieve excellence at this?

• Can I forge a true friendship with the other people who work here?

According to Buettner, work is one of just six domains that influence our level of happiness, so it's important to spend time evaluating how to make career situations better. 

Another way to improve career morale? Buettner recommends socializing after work.  "It's one of the most satisfying activities we do on a daily basis."

10 things a waiter will never tell you

Your waiter smiles, pours you a drink and takes your order. But what are they really thinking? We've interviewed some industry insiders to find out what servers secretly want customers to know.
1) 'We wont respond when you click your fingers'
According to Sarah, who works in a trendy UK restaurant chain, diners who continually click their fingers to attract a waiters attention can become very annoying. Eye contact, with a nod of the head or raise of the hand, is the preferred signals that youre ready for the bill. Everyone knows its rude, but if you ignore them just while you are talking to another customer, they do it even more, she says.

2) 'We might have prepared the food on your plate'
John, who worked for three years in a busy countryside restaurant, said that to take pressure off the kitchen, some of the smaller dishes were made by the waiting staff. Everyone passed on their compliments to the chef, he said, but I couldnt tell them that I had made it for them. I just smiled and said OK. Waiter-made dishes included breadsticks and dips, bread and olives, smaller tapas-style items and some desserts.

3) 'We dont want your two cents'
Tipping might be tricky we even have phone apps to help us work it out but if youre going to give your waiter or waitress a tip, do it considerately. Sarah recalls one busy night where a colleague waited on a large table of fourteen people over the course of an entire evening. They left her a 2p tip, she says.

4) 'Misbehaving children scare us'
Sally, who works in an upmarket Bistro-style restaurant, says that most of the time parents keep their children under control but it can be dangerous if they run around in the restaurant. They only really have a small space to run around in and it can be difficult because we are carrying hot plates all the time.

5) 'We find some of your meal requests tedious' 
Most establishments welcome some menu-tweaking, such as a burger without cheese, or pizza without anchovies, but waiters can get frustrated when customers take it to the extreme. Most of the time its OK, John says, but it can be more difficult if the dish is prepared in advance. You cant for example take out the bacon in a stew, but people can get aggressive about it.

6) 'We can't stand dealing with drunk customers'
Buy-one-get-one-free and buy-one-get-one-half-price deals can be confusing, but impossible to understand if youve had one too many. This sets up a problem for you and your waiter while you both try and figure out what you want to order. Sarah remembers: the more drunk customers get, the more confused they get and then they get angry. But its not our fault.

7) 'We dont always recommend things that we like'
Specials are often dishes the restaurant wants to shift, and the waiters have to sell them to you, the customer. So the seafood on the menu might be selling really well, but if you ask them what they recommend they will often start pointing to the specials board. Sally explains: we sometimes say certain things are nice just to get rid of them.

8) 'Were working as fast as we can'
Getting cross because your food is taking too long to arrive? Sarah says that many customers complain about the wait, even if they have been explicitly told before ordering. If we tell them theres currently a 30-minute wait for food, customers can start complaining after 20 minutes and we just say, Well, I did warn you.

9) 'We get annoyed when you send things back'
Sometimes, if a steak is overcooked or underdone its reasonable to complain and send it back. But if the vegetables are not prepared exactly as you would at home or if you like your steak excessively charred, waiters consider it picky when you send food back. Sally insists: the food is obviously cooked properly but just not how they like it to be done.

10) 'We just really want you to be polite'
Waiters are there to make your dining experience a comfortable and enjoyable one. But instead of clicking fingers and barking orders at your waiter or waitress, be polite. We asked our waiters for the one thing they like that they dont tell us. Just be polite, Sarah simply added. Remember - they could be making your dessert.


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What Banana could do to you and your health...

Banana - Who Know.



After Reading THIS, you'll NEVER look at a banana in the same way again! 

Bananas Containing three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber, a banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy. Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes. But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet. 

Depression: 
According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: 
Forget the pills -- eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia: 
High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure: 
This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it the perfect way to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power: 
200 students at a Twickenham school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation: 
High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: 
One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn: 
Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: 
Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: 
Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.


Nerves: 
Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.


Overweight and at work? 
Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and chips. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.


Ulcers: 
The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control: 
Many other cultures see bananas as a "cooling" fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.


Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): 
Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking: 
Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress: 
Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes: 
According to research in "The New England Journal of Medicine," eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!

So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!" 

How to increase Productivity..Boosting Workforce Productivity Through Employee Benefits

Government budget cuts, redundancies and high levels of inflation have all had a dramatic impact on employee morale in recent months, which in turn have a negative effect on workforce productivity.

"In the early days of the recession, there seemed to be something of a 'Blitz spirit', with workforces helping their employers to weather the bad times by accepting pay freezes or even cuts," said Dilys Robinson, principal research fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies (IES).

She warned, however, workers will soon start thinking "enough is enough."

The challenge for HR managers is finding a way to provide these workers with adequate compensation, with continuing limited resources and little sign of the economic downturn ending anytime in the near future.

Engaging Staff

Dilys Robinson from the IES believes that workers are still not expecting to receive increased financial rewards for their work. Rather they expect recognition from managers for the role they play within the organization and for senior staff to listen when suggestions are made.

"Here non-financial rewards often go a long way - an extra day's holiday after working very hard, perhaps, or even a simple 'thank you' in person or in writing from a senior manager.

It also helps if communication is clear and two-way, for example employees can make suggestions, which are listened to," she explained.

It is the personnel who are on the front-line dealing with staff everyday who need the required training for motivating the workforce and ultimately increasing productivity.

Robinson described the relationship between line managers and workers as being "very important," as they are likely to have day-to-day contact senior managers will not have with staff.

"It is often the line manager who is predominantly responsible for the mood of the team, and an effective, encouraging, engaging manager can motivate the team to produce excellent results even when times are difficult," Robinson said.

Employee Benefits

Predictions are that flexible benefits packages are likely to increase in popularity in the coming months, which will bring advantages to employees at no extra cost to employers.

Diana Bruce, policy liaison officer at the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals, said: "Employees will hopefully feel the benefit by being given the option to adjust or increase their benefits in kind –whether  that be through childcare provision or private health insurance."

One specific example Bruce highlighted was companies allowing their employees to buy additional leave, or sell any unused holiday, which could improve "the package" for staff without any additional financial burden.

Research conducted by first direct also suggested something as simple as introducing casual dress in some work places could boost output, with a third of respondents stating they felt this would have a positive effect on work place productivity.

"Employers need to keep communication open at all times and find other ways of motivating staff. Not everybody is driven by an increase in salary," she added.

One company which has introduced an employee benefit scheme to great success is National Grid. Since December 2009 the firm has been offering a discount scheme with various retailers through P&MM, a marketing services agency that specializes in performance improvement, recently adding re-loadable cards for the supermarkets Sainsbury and Asda to the list through the provider's digital platform.

Nearly a third of the firm's 10,000 workers are registered with the scheme, according to EmployeeBenefits.co.uk, which allows them to access discounts through online voucher codes, cashback, SMS codes and the telephone.

Caroline Adams, employee benefits manager at National Grid, told the news provider: "The new website will not only aid us in offering our staff a vast array of discounts but will help us boost employee engagement.

It is a very effective way of rewarding and helping our diverse workforce make the most of their income."

Want to learn..Explaining the Business Need for Talent and Succession Management

Talent management and succession planning is one of the most strategic and value-added processes any company can implement. Why? Because it is good for the company and it is good for the employees. In this article, we’ll explore the key business values of talent management that are applicable for every size, shape and type of organization.

Talent Management is a Risk Management Business Function:  Talent management and succession planning is a critical risk management strategy. Virtually all companies have many other risk management strategies and plans in place—if the computer system goes down, there is a plan to follow to address this issue as a high priority and a process to follow to correct the problem. If a fire threatens a company facility, there is a plan to evacuate employees and to contact emergency personnel. If a safety or security breach occurs in the company, there is an emergency process to follow.

But many companies do not have a plan in place to follow if a key employee leaves the company, or if an executive leader announces a retirement, or if a leader experiences an emergency leave of absence. In these situations, many times the company will either experience months of instability and lost opportunities due to a vacant leadership position, or the company will make an urgent hiring decision that may or may not be the best decision for the organization. A company could even lose a line of business or lose a competitive edge due to a leadership vacancy.  This is analogous to experiencing a company computer system outage that would take months to correct—if this type of system outage is unthinkable, an extensive leadership vacancy in the company should also be unthinkable.

All companies should be discussing vacancy risk of key talent in the organization, and all companies should have valid succession plans in place as part of their overall risk management business strategy.

Learn the technique..... Emphasis on Teaching

What is Good Teaching?

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All students have had hundreds of teachers in their lifetimes. A very few of these teachers they remember as being exceptionally good. What are the qualities that combine to create an excellent, memorable teacher? Why do some teachers inspire students to work three times harder than they normally would, while others inspire students to skip class? Why do students learn more from some teachers than others?

If you are trying to become a better teacher, these are important questions. This issue of "Emphasis on Teaching" focuses on the four essential qualities that distinguish exceptional teachers: knowledge, communication skills, interest, and respect for students.

An Experiment

Here's an experiment I have done in a number of my classes. The results may surprise you. Go into one of the classes you are teaching and have your students take out a sheet of paper. Ask them to list for you the qualities they feel are important in a good teacher. Ask them to identify the qualities they admire in the best teachers they have had. Then give the students enough time to think about it and write something down. Five minutes is good, but ten might be better. Let them answer the questions anonymously if they desire.

What you will get if you combine all of the responses is a fascinating collage of ideas. I have found that most of the responses fall into two specific categories: 1) a set of "core qualities" that students recognize in good teachers, and 2) a set of specific skills that are developed by good teachers.

"Core qualities" are the essential characteristics needed to be a good teacher. I would like to concentrate on the core qualities in this issue, and in the future discuss specific techniques that can be used to improve your classroom environment.

Knowledge

In every survey I have given, students consistently and clearly target as the number one quality of a good teacher exactly what you would expect: knowledge of the subject. You must be an expert in your field if you are going to be a good teacher at a university. This is a prerequisite.

Communication

The second core quality that good teachers possess is the ability to communicate their knowledge and expertise to their students. You may be the greatest expert ever in your field, but what would happen if you lectured in Latin? How much would your students learn?

It is a common misconception at the university level that knowledge of a subject is all that's required to be a good teacher; that the students should be willing and able to extract the meat from what you say regardless of how it is delivered (even if it is delivered in Latin). This might be true at the upper graduate level, but elsewhere it is definitely untrue. It is especially untrue at the undergraduate level. The teacher's job is to take advanced knowledge and make it accessible to the students. A good teacher allows students to understand the material, and to understand what it means (because it is one thing to understand how nuclear bombs work, but quite another to understand what nuclear bombs mean).

A good teacher can take a subject and help make it crystal clear to the students. A bad teacher can take that same material and make it impenetrable. Or a bad teacher can devote so little time and effort to preparation that the material presented is intrinsically confusing and disorganized. A good teacher is willing to expend the effort needed to find innovative and creative ways to make complicated ideas understandable to their students, and to fit new ideas into the context available to the student. A good teacher can explain complicated material in a way that students can understand and use.

There is a saying, "Give me a fish and I eat for a day, teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime." This is the philosophy of a good teacher. Give your students an answer and they can solve one problem, but show students the techniques needed to find the answer for themselves and they can become self-sufficient in the field. Students need to be shown how to apply the new techniques you teach to problem solving.

Interest

A good teacher starts with a firm knowledge of the subject, and builds on that with a clarity and understanding designed to help students master the material. The best teachers then go one step further. Because good teachers are interested in the material being taught, they make the class interesting and relevant to the students. Knowledge is worthless unless it is delivered to the students in a form they can understand. But the effort expended making the material understandable is wasted if the students are asleep when it is delivered, or if the students can see no point in learning the material.

Good teachers recognize this, and work hard to make their material relevant. They show students how the material will apply to their lives and their careers. Bad teachers make material "relevant" by threatening students with failure on a test. Good teachers go far beyond this: they make students wantto learn the material by making it interesting.

This is one of the things that makes research so important and vital to a university: research makes the ideas discussed in class exciting and important to the teacher, as well as to the students. If the teacher isn't interested in what's being taught, then why should the students be?

Respect

Good teachers always possess these three core qualities: knowledge, the ability to convey to students an understanding of that knowledge, and the ability to make the material interesting and relevant to students. Complementing these three is a fourth quality: good teachers have a deep-seated concern and respect for the students in the classroom. Why else would a teacher put in the time and effort needed to create a high quality class?

The creation of a good class requires an immense amount of work. You don't simply come up with clear explanations and examples and experiments for class off the top of your head. You don't create fair, consistent, high quality tests and homework assignments (read "learning experiences") five minutes before you hand them out. You don't figure out ways to integrate new materials and research into a class in an understandable way on the drive in one morning. You work at this sort of quality all the time. You spend time with your students so you can learn about holes in their understanding. You read and write and create to build an exciting and interesting class every day. The only thing that would drive you to do that is a concern and respect for the adults in your classroom.

Conclusion

When you strive and work to become a good teacher and to create a good class, the four core qualities are essential: knowledge, the skills to convey that knowledge, the ability to make the material you are teaching interesting and relevant, and a deep-seated respect for the student. Without these four qualities, good teaching will not exist. 

Do you really want to know..internet Addicts Are More Prone To Depression?

Internet has made its way into most of our house today. It is a valuable asset for research, news, communication, leisure and learning. With online video games, social networking sites, chat rooms, everyone especially the teenagers are getting addicted to it. Unfortunately, internet surfing can be a very bad habit.

Internet addiction is a very destructive problem faced by many teenagers today. Spending too much time with the internet can prevent teenagers from social and educational progress. Additionally, severe addiction to online surfing can distract one person from performing his/her responsibilities.

A research in china showed that internet-addict teens are more likely to develop depression. The study involved 1,041 teenagers who are free from depression at the start of the research. 9 months later their psychological states were reassessed. Researchers found out that 84 of them were suffering from depression and those who were excessive internet users were one-and-a-half times more prone than moderate users.

Researchers believed that the reasons behind the depression were the direct effect of lack of sleep due to late night surfing and stress from playing online games. The result suggests that a normal teenager free from mental health problems, but uses the internet excessively could develop depression in the long run.

According to the background information of the study, pathological use of the internet is identified as a problematic behavior with signs and symptoms similar to those of other addictions. In other studies, they found out that teenage boys are usually the pathological user of the internet, but the author said that the number of girls who shows addictive internet behavior is on the rise.

Internet is a two-edged sword; it can have both favorable and unfavorable consequences. The internet is a great place for learning and researching new things. And though it is considered a safe and easy way of keeping in touch with friends and family, it’s very clear that internet addiction is a very bad and unhealthy habit. It can promote a sedentary lifestyle that might lead to other illnesses -aside from depression.

Furthermore, it limits the social growth of a person, depriving a person to experience new things and to spend time with family and loved-ones. It can also expose teenagers in horrific activities like sex and drug-addiction. With these favorable and unfavorable consequences, it is important that we fully understand the risks and dangers of the internet for us to find a well-balanced real and virtual life.

How you can achieve SUCCESS in your Job interview

If you’re a job seeker, you’re probably thinking about that all important interview that could make or break your chances at a good job. It’s a lot of pressure, but there are some things to keep in mind that will help.For reading steps of how to perform best in your job interview keep reading further. 
Steps:

1. Regardless what pressures you bring to the situation, you can’t make them the interviewer’s concern in any way. You have to bring a good attitude to your all important interview. Whatever challenges you might be experiencing, the interview atmosphere has to be positive. This may not be as hard as it might sound. After all, you got the interview. Regardless what else is going on in your life, you stood out in some way.


2. Before you go over all the reasons why you’d be the best choice for this job, spend some time envisioning all the reasons why you might not get it. Put yourself in the position of the interviewer who is going to be looking for ways to eliminate people from consideration. Now consider ways you can eliminate those reasons from your interviewer’s judgment.+


3.Vocalize the opposing point of view and role play your response. If you haven’t got a sympathetic friend who will role play with you, use the mirror. Raise any issues you can imagine an interviewer could think of. Then, consider how you would address them and give your response.


4. The interviewer may not bring up any of the concerns you’ve identified, but they may still disqualify you, so 
look for ways you can be proactive. Examine each concern. How can you change the way you present yourself to head off being eliminated?


5.Work your way back through all of your presentation materials; resume, cover letter, job queries, phone calls. How might your presentation create the wrong perception about you by illustrating any issue you’ve identified? Your presentation is your public face. It’s either going to get you an opportunity or close it out. How can you improve your personal presentation when you consider the viewpoint of an interviewer?

6.Once you’ve identified and responded to anything your interviewer could perceive as negative, how can you turn it into a positive? Every situation is double-sided. Just because something about you might be perceived in a negative light, doesn’t mean you have to accept that will happen. What’s the best face you can show the world? Bring that face to your interview.

Steve Jobs commencement speech... very inspirational...

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, it's 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 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.

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 it's 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.