One of Steve Jobs’s Quotes Is Expired Today — And It Became Misleading
So I decided to re-issue the quote for the modern world.
Everything has its time.
And so does the lessons you learned in the past.
There’s this quote from Steve Jobs that has been floating around the internet for a while. The context is motivational and inspiring, and even I was intrigued by it. I’m certain you’ve all heard or seen his infamous 2009 speech back then, and this was the highlight of his words:
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.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I do not mind this quote.
From my assumption from reading and watching his words, I think he was trying to say that we should take control of our lives and take the leap of faith for greatness, which was what Steve Jobs used to preach a lot about.
It is in a way, motivating us to stop wasting our lives on being hesitant to do something big. And since he was a perfectionist in being a detailed architect, he must’ve heard a lot of people criticizing him (perhaps that’s what he felt). Maybe there were other projects he wished he was able to pursue but people told him ‘no’.
And to be entirely fair, he was dying at that time, so it’s natural he would give his advice to youngsters on what he wished he had done at the start and not regret it.
That’s understandable. We all want to know what pain we can avoid in our lives that older people have experienced, so I get why he was saying this.
Nothing wrong with it.
However, this may have worked much better in his time because things changed.
After the Steve Jobs era, things drastically changed a lot. If you ever looked back on 2011 content on Youtube, you’ll find that that era is a whole lot different than what it is today.
Today’s era is way more competitive.
If you’ve been on Youtube since the beginning of time, you’ll find that monetizing your channel is way more different than it was back then. It used to be from click rates, now it’s watch times.
Markiplier, one of the big Youtuber, also mentioned this:
“It’s a change from seeing YouTube as a platform where anyone can do anything, and anyone can put up whatever they want to a system where you have to follow strict rules.
You have to follow strict protocols, you have to criticize others. It’s every man for himself and no one can cooperate.”
Youtube changed its policy all the time and we can’t blame them. There are many Youtubers out there and sometimes their contents got out of hand, it makes sense that the company has to step in and add some rules.
And sometimes, the rule may affect the Youtuber’s viewers.
This also applies to other jobs. Back then, it was also common that people didn’t need a degree to be able to work. But now, most of the time, you need at least a degree to get hired, there are a lot more people in the job market now. So, the competition is higher.
I stumbled across this video one day as I was scrolling on Youtube, and it made me nervous:
There’s also this comment section that mentioned this as well that got a top comment:
Remember the episode of The Simpsons where Homer had to let go of his dream job and go back to his old toxic job so that he can support the family?
The quality of life now has changed. The economy and competition have also changed that it shifted the way we live now. Here’s to hoping things can sustain though for us all.
Many events also happened that changed nearly everything in the past few years:
- The financial crisis of 2008
- Social media boom where there are 2 side effects after consumption: dopamine to stay on that platform or coming out depressed after seeing its contents
- Covid pandemic changed the way we think and behave
- and now, the Russia-Ukraine war sparked inflation in everything everywhere, and we don’t know when it’s going to end.
There were reports where young people were depressed or anxious because their plans were derailed during the pandemic and we don’t know what our future would look like now after the effect.
Heck, we were all spooked by the fact that KFC restaurants closed down in America back in 2020. Even the biggest company struggled to cope with the pandemic to survive.
If it’s hard already for big companies to survive the covid event, imagine what it’s like for smaller companies and what they had to get through. Not to mention that there are other cases people are forced to take a lot more drastic actions that they don’t like in order to survive.
And because of that, the main part of his quote that I bolded became questioning.
Is it possible not to work for someone else, who is paying you? Is it possible that this someone else has a vision that they are passionate about and they need your help to do it? Is it wrong to work for other people?
These things must be taken into consideration before allowing other people to not work for you. Everyone’s paths are different, we can’t entirely say that we should not be working for someone else’s dream.
The quote is not entirely wrong though, but perhaps in need of a renewal clarification.
Taken out of context by ‘motivation gurus’ on social media
Since social media is mostly dominated by younger people, we’d just eat up whatever is exposed there without much pondering about it.
Steve Jobs’s quote is used a lot in motivational and entrepreneurial posts accounts. Back in 2020, it was everywhere.
At first, I thought, “Okay, it’s Steve Jobs. He’s the genius, I should be listening to him.”
And then, the mindset shifted to: “Since Steve said that, I should be quitting the job that I hate now and chasing my career dream!”
Great courage, but questioning of what’s the next or alternative plan should it derail.
Conclusion — A new way to use this quote
But still, Steve Jobs was a brilliant man.
I am not saying his quote is wrong, it’s probably in need of more clarification in today’s time. Perhaps he would have more to say had he lived today, maybe even reforming what he said after going through a lot more in life.
For now, this is how we can use the quote differently and re-issue it to:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it.”
Come to think about it, this quote is similar to the quote that Yinsen said to Tony Stark when he was escaping that cave in the very first Iron Man. He was so impacted by what he saw and what Yinsen said that he decided to change his industry and what he did.
And ultimately, change his life.
Now, that quote is more humbling than just to say ‘working for someone else’s dream’. Perhaps you can still put that statement in depending on the context.
I don’t particularly like what continued after ‘your time is limited, so don’t waste it’ because that ‘someone else’ is paying you in order for you to survive. Perhaps when he said that, it was addressed to his haters, but some of us may have mistaken it as not working for someone else.
There’s nothing wrong with working for someone else. You are trying to survive, you are learning new skills, meeting new people and networking. Even successful humble people had to work for someone first before they found what they want to do.
So, don’t be ashamed of it. Do what you have to do and what’s best for you.
And most of all….
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it.”
