Stay Hungry... Stay Foolish...

I was pregnant with my child then. My grandmother had not been keeping well at that time. I had had a bad year. I had had a misunderstanding with a childhood friend of mine and few of the decisions I had taken had proved wrong. Perpetually in confusion and resisting the new changes that life was thrusting on me, I would be in a lot of discomfort. And then one fine day, early morning, my brother called me - He informed - Granny is no more.

No more! Huh!

Misunderstanding with a childhood friend!? :)

Ego was coming in the way of my friend and me getting back? :)

I went and visited granny in the hospital.

Was it true? Was this person, with whom I grew up - whom I admired so much - a person of determination and grit, a person with life and joy - just a body - Was there no soul anymore? Would this person never talk to me?

I mean, was there really no life anymore? - How was I supposed to come to terms with that?

My decisions had gone wrong?:)

Why did I feel so heavy and yet so light again..?

Though I still found it difficult to comprehend the reality of what happened, the inevitability of death hit me. A burden seemed lifted off my chest. And all my confusions seemed silly. I got in touch with my friend and told her about my pregnancy. I noticed that she seemed genuinely and honestly happy. I felt the tension waning away and after a long time I felt happy within.

It was at such a time, that I chanced upon Steve Jobs’s commencement speech at Stanford. Among the other things he talks in his speech, he mentions about his close shave with death and I couldn't help agreeing with it.

I know this is a much heard speech, but I couldn’t help reproducing some parts of it here again -

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.

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. 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.

Stay hungry, Stay Foolish... !