Daring to be different

Steve Jobs, Apple past president and CEO, died peacefully yesterday surrounded by family. He leaves to mourn his wife and children.
These are the words of the standard obituary we have all come to know. But Jobs was more than standard because he also leaves behind a world he changed dramatically by daring to be different. Jobs stepped outside the box and altered the way we interface with each other – whether it proves to be a good thing or not, he changed our whole way of being.
My husband thought it was really sad that a man like Jobs would die at such a young age 56. Whilst I agree with the sentiment I also have learned something wonderful from this innovative and boundary less man, despite dying at what many would consider to be a young age, Jobs lived his life to the fullest and according to his own rules.
Being diagnosed with cancer must have forced Jobs to face and accept his mortality. I believe this diagnosis caused Jobs to realise regardless of how rich and famous he was he could not elude death and that his time on Earth was finite. It does not appear that he wallowed in pity instead he used his time to move mountains because as he once said, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
He propelled Apple from obscurity to notoriety by thinking outside the box constantly. His beginnings, by all accounts, appear to have been humble and for many would have been an excuse not to achieve. He was adopted. Never made contact with his biological father. Dropped out of University which led him to study calligraphy and caused him to fall in love with typefaces and from there he started his quest to change the world. He is also noted for saying, “It’s not what you decide to do in life, and it’s what you decide not to do.”
I believe what Jobs was trying to say is that many of us take the expected and often unsatisfying path in life. People like him change the world because they do not do what is expected instead they redefine the unexpected. He was fired and rehired by Apple. He faced many trials but never once did his trials force him to compromise. He remained true to himself to his death.
Steve Jobs may have died at the age of 56 but he embraced life more than some people who live to be 100 because he knew that his time on Earth was limited and he had nothing to lose by shattering all boundaries and stereotypes that previously existed for technology. And thanks to his innovative thinking we are all more connected than we ever would have been without him.
Steve Jobs’ death made me think of Beyonce’s new song (which I totally love), ‘I was here’. Steve Jobs has definitely “left a footprint in the sands of time” and will be remembered forever more for changing the entire landscape of technology by being true to himself. He didn’t care whether his quest was loved or not, he just did.
May he rest in peace because in his short time on earth, Jobs completed the job he needed to do because his legacy lives on through the mark he leaves behind. A vast majority of the world knows he was here.