Reading

How to live before you die

Understanding the Text

a. What is the story about Steve Jobs’ birth?
Ans: HIs biological mother decided to put him up for adoption before his birth. She felt that he should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for him to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. When he was born they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. Later, he was adopted by an uneducated couple.

b. What does he mean when he says, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards”?
Ans: According to Steve Jobs, we can only connect the dots by looking backwards, rather then forwards. Dots represent various occurencesand situations that seem minor and unimportant in the moment, but have major ramifications when seen in retrospect. Job illustrates this point by sharing his own story of studying calligraphy, which he first dismissed as useless until he used it to create the original Mac’s gorgeous lettering.

c. What happened when Steve Jobs turned 30?
Ans: When Steve Jobs turned 30, he was fired from his own company by the board of directors.

d. Jobs contends that you need to love to do what you do in order to be great at it. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Ans: Jobs has a point, and so do I. When we love something, we put our faith in it. It’s something we like doing. When we are driven to succeed we achieve great things.

e. Is death really life’s greatest invention?
Ans: Yes, death is really life’s greatest invention. No one has ever escaped it. It’s life’s change agent.

Reference to the Context

a. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course”.

i. Who was the baby boy?
Ans: Baby Steve Job was the kid.

ii. What does ‘do you want him?’ mean?
Ans: The biological mother of Steve Jobs urged his parents to take him on the waiting list.

iii. Who does ‘they’ refer to?
Ans: ‘They’ refers to the parents of Steve Jobs on the waiting list.

b. Explain the following lines:

i. “You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever”.
Ans: This line has been delivered by the CEO and co-founder of Apple Computer Steve Jobs in his speech at Stanford University. Here in this line, Steve Jobs is advising all the people about the vital role of gut, destiny, life, karma in their life. He advises all people to keep faith and trust in these vital aspects of their life. According to Steve Jobs, these aspects move along with success. Trust in these aspects can lead anyone towards perfection.

ii. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”.
Ans: This line has been delivered by the CEO and co-founder of Apple Computer Steve Jobs in his speech at Stanford University. Here in this line, he is advising people about the importance of time that keeps on running so fast. According to him, we have to utilize our time which is so limited. We shouldn’t waste our time living someone else’s life. Within this short period, we have to make the right use of out time to bright our future. Time waits for none. We should move ahead without wasting our time.

c. What does he mean by “don’t settle”?
Ans: Don’t settle means we should not accept something which isn’t as good as we want it to be. When we are terrified of change, failure and taking risks we settle in life. The way to do great work is to love what we do. If we don’t find it, we should keep look for it. Excellence is the place where people who reject to settle for mediocrity lives. It is a journey of continuous progression towards the goals in our life.

d. Which style of speech is used by the speaker to persuade the audience?
Ans: To persuade the audiences, a personal , informal style of speech is used by the speaker. His speech seems a narrative type where he tries his best to motivate his audiences through his real life-related stories.

e. It is not easy to motivate others. How do you think Steve Jobs’ speech is so inspiring?
Ans: This is a passionate, inspiring and well-structured speech by Steve Jobs. To some extent, each of Steve Jobs’ three tales involves some kind of struggle or self-sacrifice. The speech emphasises the triumph over adversity. The audience will be more inclined to accept the speaker’s advice if they are associated with him or her. The audience bears witness to a real demonstration of this concept. The argument is well-reasoned and not flimsy.

f. Why do you think Steve Jobs used the personal narrative story telling technique in his speech? What influence does it have on the audiences?
Ans: Steve Jobs used the personal narrative story telling technique in his speech to encourage his audience to follow their dream. He presents his successful career in life with his personal facts. This approach can give the audiences courage they didn’t know they had.

Reference beyond the text

a. One of the Steve Jobs mottos was: ‘Think differently’. Can this make a person succeed in life? What challenges are there in thinking differently?
Ans: Yes, this can make a person succeed in life. To change a life, we have to think and act differently. There must be a change in our thoughts. We have to try to do something different. Similar thoughts never can get proper way ahead to change a life. There are various challenges in thinking differently. Many legends, inventors were humiliated and cut off from societies due to their nature of thinking differently. They were supposed to be insane. Thinking differently may cut off people from majorities, societies, etc. But, for change and development, we have to think differently.

b. What does the slogan “Stay hungry; stay foolish” mean to you?
Ans: Being ready and eager to try new things is summed up in the phrase “Stay hungry: stay stupid”. To learn anything new, one must be eager to put in the effort and see themselves as nave and uneducated.

c. What does it mean to be a visionary? What makes Steve Jobs different from a fortune teller?
Ans: Being visionary means to have broader and long term thoughts that can analyze the consequences as well as positive sides of the actions that are being taken at the present. Fortune tellers guess or predict the future which is not always accurate. It doesn’t mean they are visionary. In order to be described as a visionary, one must have a positive outlook for the future. Curiosity, intuition, various ways of thinking, interests, problems, and challenges, experience, and trust in destiny are all essential aspects of foresight. Steve was able to get to the top of the technical field because of his foresight. So, Steve Jobs is a visionary rather than a fortune teller because of his upbeat future predictions. In fact, to compare Steve Jobs to a fortune teller would be a pointless comparison.