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10 Articles That Changed My Life


It’s easy to find a well written article.
It’s not always easy to find a well written article with genuine value.
That’s because the Internet has nearly limitless value — you can use it to look up the correct spelling of a word, or to translate text between languages, or even figure out “what’s the name of that guy from that movie who was in that other movie?”
You can also use the Internet to go shopping while at home, or do job searching while at work, or publish blog entries while on vacation.
Taking it to the next level, you can use the Internet to interact with people, make new friends around the world, or research your next dating partner.
What I’ve discovered to be most surprising, though, is that the Internet contains life-altering advice.
Regardless of this, most people don’t think to seek it out. They regularly use the Internet as a convenient source of information, but fail to recognize its potential as an instrument for self-improvement.
Online articles that promote life-altering advice are like hidden gems of the Internet — they’re accessible, but they’re difficult to find because of the sheer abundance of everything else that’s accessible.
For this reason, I’ve compiled the following list of articles containing value so profound that they literally changed my life.
I therefore extend my gratitude to the authors of these great articles:
For teaching me to stop attributing value to unimportant things, and start trusting my instincts. Before reading Jobs’ speech, I was working a job I hated because it was really the only thing I ever tried. It was what I knew. Jobs says “You’ve got to find what you love.” His article helped me realize that I was wasting my life living someone else’s dream. If I settled for someone else’s dream, I’d grow old and die without ever seeking my own.
For teaching me that being depressed had nothing to do with the serotonin in my brain — the reason I felt depressed was because my life sucked. I was making choices just to appease the opinions of people around me, when I should have been making choices to appease myself. This article helped me realize that medication was not the solution to my joyless lifestyle — the true remedy was to start making my own choices to live a more fulfilling life.
For teaching me that “to abandon a comfortable lifestyle that isn’t deeply fulfilling is to abandon nothing.” Steve’s article helped me understand I was defending a comfortable career without good reason. At the start of each workday, I was reluctant to get out of bed. At the end of each workday, the amount of satisfaction I received from the work I was doing was nil. Steve caused me to ask myself: Why should I stay loyal to such a meaningless job?
#4 – Brian Kim’s How to Find What You Love to Do
For emphasizing the importance of self-assessment. Brian made me take a good hard look at myself and figure out what it is that makes me happiest. What’s more, his article discusses how uncertainty and fear are the most common obstacles preventing you from doing what you love to do. His solution involves self-analysis: identify your skills and interests, then use your strengths to live your passion. In Brian’s words, “conquer indecision and ACT, and you will most definitely conquer all fear.”
For helping me understand that the reason I’m reluctant to get a job is because I’d rather be the boss, president, or sole proprietor of my own creation. Thanks to Fred’s article, I was able to see the entrepreneur in me: I’m always looking for a way for things to be simplified, made more efficient, or automated by a computer. There’s a reason I feel this way — and it’s for the same reason that I don’t want to have to answer to someone else.
#6 – Steve Pavlina’s 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job
For teaching me that working for other people is stupid. Self-employment using passive income is the best way to earn money without trading away life’s freedoms. In other words, Steve helped me understand it’s possible to be “Happily Jobless.”
For teaching me to use the power of exponential growth. Like any other long-term investment, creating a successful blog takes time. Along the way, you’re bound to have ups and downs, and people will undoubtedly tell you that you suck. Darren says that so long as you be yourself, work hard, and are willing to experiment, your efforts will be rewarded.
#8 – Caro Clarke’s Are You a Writer?
For helping me realize my dream of becoming a writer. Although many people have tried to tell me that I’m a writer at heart, I always disregarded their comments under the belief that it wasn’t true. After reading Caro’s article, I recognized the writer in me: I get my inspiration from the world around me, and write every day because I enjoy it. When I’m not writing, I’m often thinking about writing. The signs are clear — I am a writer.
#9 – Danielle Gibbings’ Need a Reboot?
For being the very first source of encouragement from a complete stranger. Danielle discovered my blog during its infancy, and was inspired by the movement I was trying to create. She wrote about LifeReboot on her own blog to help lead more readers to my site. She read my site often and left encouraging comments. She sent me my very first donation. Danielle’s supportive attitude helped me more than she’ll ever know. She helped me build confidence in my decision to pursue writing, and caused me to realize how I was finally on the right track.
For demonstrating that people enjoy the things that I write. After publishing my “Computer Guy” article, its popularity skyrocketed overnight. Until then, I had never written anything that gained such attention. To me, the immediate reaction I received from this single article was proof that I had a talent for writing.
Again, I’d like to extend my thanks to the authors. Thanks for sharing your advice, inspiration, and encouragement.
Chances are, some of these articles won’t affect you the same way they affected me. I believe that’s to be expected, since we’re all different people.
The fascinating thing is, everyone has their own “gems of the Internet” just waiting to be discovered.
Think about it. Life-altering advice exists online. Advice to help you get out of debt, leave a dead-end relationship, or whatever type of self-improvement you can possibly imagine. All you need to do is consciously seek it out.
You’ll know once you’ve discovered it. The advice will resonate with you, inspire you, and maybe even change your life.

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'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.
Video of the Commencement address.
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.
Thank you all very much.

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Most People Are Depressed For a Very Good Reason

April 27th, 2007.
My Great Grandmother was born in 1904 and immigrated to America with her family shortly thereafter. When she turned 12, her Mother forced her to drop out of school and work twelve hours a day in a tire factory so the family could pay the bills. When she was 17, her family pressured her to marry a man she didn’t love in order to gain financial security. Shortly after she said ‘I do,’ my Grandmother came to her senses and demanded a divorce.
Back then, divorce wasn’t as common as it is now and her demand caused a lot of controversy in her community. No one could understand why a woman wouldn’t want to be with the nice man who wanted to provide for her and many dubbed her a strumpet. But my Grandmother stood her ground and dissolved her marriage. However, upon returning home, her family had decided in her absence that she must be crazy. Literally. They had her forcibly committed to a mental institution.
Mental institutions were not the nice, clean, white places of healing they are today. Instead, they were filled to the brim with incompetent doctors who made snap diagnoses and ordered experimental shock treatments. Patients often spent hours strapped down in beds and force fed drugs that made them feel even worse. Some of them were raped, beaten, or otherwise abused. After all, they were crazy. Who would believe them?
My Grandmother told me all of this for the first time shortly after my 19th birthday. I had recently found out something pretty shocking about my past (Another story for another day, don’t worry) and I went to her for confirmation because there wasn’t anyone else I could trust to tell me the truth. She did confirm what I had learned and apologized for her part in it. Destroyed by the news, I confessed to her that I was thinking about going into therapy. My desire for a Doctor to ‘fix me’ is what inspired her story.
When she was finished, she said to me, “All the time I spent in that hellhole, people were constantly trying to convince me that I felt sad because there was something wrong with my brain. But do you want to know what I really learned?”
I leaned in closer, absolutely absorbed by the image of my tough Grandmother who raised her children, nurtured her (Second!) marriage, and was one of the first successful business women of her era spending time in a mental institution. “What Grandma?” I breathlessly inquired.
“I learned that I wasn’t sad because there was something wrong with my brain. I learned that I was sad because my life sucked.”
Initially, I laughed because it was funny to hear my old Grandma use the word ‘sucked’ in a sentence. But after that, I worriedly asked, “Are you saying I shouldn’t seek therapy?”
“No,” she replied, “I’m not saying that at all. What I am saying is that you should be wary of the Doctor who tells you a pill is a fix for your broken mind. The way I see it, you have a lot of reasons to be sad right now. So if that’s what you’re feeling, that seems about right to me.”
Now that we live in a culture where mental illness is so incredibly popular that you’re almost considered abnormal if you don’t have one, her words ring even truer. A lot of people nowadays seem to think that any sign of anxiousness or sadness signifies a broken brain, and immediately upon discovery will run with their asses on fire for their prescription of Happy Pills.
“My brain doesn’t produce enough serotonin!” they chirp. “This is why I’m always sad!”
It’s always the serotonin. It’s never the lousy job or the loveless marriage or the helplessness one feels when they finally realize they’ve been pressured into living a life they would have never chosen forthemselves. No, it’s never that. It’s always a broken brain.
Now please don’t misunderstand me here. I am not trying to lambaste psychiatric treatment nor am I denying the existence of real, valid, medically proven mental disabilities. I realize there are people out there who downright suffer from hallucinations, irrational fears and compulsions, and crippling life debilitating illnesses that wreak havoc on their lives if left untreated. I do not fault these people for taking the drugs they need to feel better. In fact, I applaud them.
It’s the people who try to eradicate every hint of sadness and anger out of human existence I fault. Negative emotions are a vital part of the human condition and it isn’t until we experience them that we truly appreciate the positive opposites. In other words, one needs sadness in their lives to be able to fully recognize happiness when they come across it. Without anger, we can never appreciate the calm; our hatred and indifference emphasis our love. To deprive oneself of any emotion characteristic to our nature is to deny the very things that make us human. Our minds work the way they do for a reason. They are not broken.
Modern day Americans are often trapped in lousy, disappointing, soul crushing careers. If they are not divorced already, their marriages are on the rocks. They live far outside of their means, rack up thousands of dollars of debt, and then they work overtime to pay for the toys they never have time to play with. They dedicate their lives to pleasing ungrateful children who won’t amount to much more than they did. Hours of their downtime is spent in front of the television, switching from reality show to reality show, because it is easier to watch other people live life than it is to live their own. In a rare moment of creativity, they might write a secret out on a postcard and send it to a website because they don’t have a single person in real life that they trust enough to share their fears with. They feel all of this on top of the usual human maladies of sickness, death and grief.
To be perfectly honest, I would think it was weirder if most people didn’tentertain thoughts of suicide.
The majority of people aren’t sad because there is something wrong with their brain. They are sad because their lives suck. But rather than admit that to themselves, they run to the Doctor and beg for a diagnosis that alleviates their personal responsibility in this regard. After all, if a man in a white coat tells you’re broken, you never have to worry about fixing yourself. The sad reality is that they’ll spend the rest of their lives switching medications and wondering why nothing they take works and cures their disease. Never once do they consider that the disease is theirlife and true healing will come once attempts are made to repair it.
If you are sad right now, I want you to consider that perhaps there is nothing wrong with you. Perhaps you are seeing things the way theyought to be seen. Maybe there is just something wrong with the worldright now? Instead of popping some pills in the hopes that they will put us on a perpetual even keel, maybe instead we should figure out what is wrong with our society…and fix it.

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