TAKEAWAY FROM "JOBS"

On Steve Jobs Film

Last night Don and I went to see “Jobs,” a film on the life of Steve Jobs, a man probably deserving to be canonized as chief saint of computerland. As the world knows, he has brought changes to our way of life. We wanted to find out what it was about the man that made him accomplish so much. As the film progressed, I began to be uncomfortable with what I was watching. If the film could be believed, this was a man obsessed with a purpose, a noble one, but somewhere along the way, the noble purpose took over the man.  

“You have changed,” Steve Wozniak (portrayed by Josh Gad) said emotionally, “You are the beginning of your universe, and the end of your universe and it is a very small world.”

The character in the movie portrayed Jobs as visionary. He saw way into the future, very much ahead of the pack. And as he worked to bring his vision to reality, he let nothing get in the way of that process. He had to have absolute control. People became mere tools in his hands, and when he was done with them, he was done with them.

The Pursuit of Success

I have met people who are cut from the same cloth as Jobs has been portrayed.  They, too, have climbed to great heights and in the eyes of many, have attained success. They are unfeeling, hardhearted and brutal in pursuit of their goals. I see people destroyed, hurt and broken in the wake of their quests. There have been tributes and accolades heaped on Steve Jobs for the impact he has made on our world. Rightly so. Probably, he would not have been able to do as much if he were less ruthless. I don’t know. I think there are many who would disagree with my discomfort about the manner Jobs accomplished his goals. Times have changed and paradigms have shifted. The old belief that the end does not justify the means has become passé to the younger generations. Years ago, seating in my journalism class, I listened intently to my professor, a well-known newspaperman, emphatically say, “Your responsibility is to get the news, the facts of the news by any way you possibly can.” Then he added, “You have to get the news, by hook or by crook.”

Lost Award-Winning Moment?

Why do we do what we do? What we do comes from who we are. Who and what we are come from the totality of what we bring with us when we are born and the experiences and influences that shape us.  An influence on me came from a Reader’s Digest story I have read as a kid about a journalist/photographer covering the accidental death of a 3-year old girl. The girl had gone behind the truck her grandfather was driving. Unaware of her, the grandfather put his gear in reverse and backed up, running over his granddaughter. As he got out of his truck, he saw her, picked up her limp body and carried her into the house. By the time the photographer arrived at the residence, a group of neighbors and media people had gathered on the front lawn making it difficult for him to take pictures. He worked his way to the back of the house and found the kitchen door unlocked. He quietly opened the door and went in, but hesitated to take another step. Right in front of him was the picture of grief. The little girl’s body lay on the kitchen table with the grandfather seated next to her, his face buried in his hands. He recognized that the emotional scene before him presented an award-winning photo. He prepared his camera and as he started to work on its focus, he stopped, put back his camera in its case and quietly left the grieving grandfather with his granddaughter. Given the golden opportunity to shoot an award-winning picture, the photographer made the decision not to use another person’s grief to make a name for himself. He may not have become an award-winning photographer, and in fact, I don’t even remember his name, but as he shared this story many years ago, a little girl in a little city in the Philippines decided she would like to be the kind of person he was.

CHOICES

A Happy Old Maid!

I must have been 6-years old when I decided my ambition in life was to become a happy old maid. I was going to be a career woman and will show the world that a woman’s life fulfillment did not consist merely in getting a husband and bearing children. Where my 6–year old brain got this idea escapes me.

As I grew up, went to high school and off to college, I thought I’d be a prize-winning writer (a Pulitzer will do) or a well-known defense lawyer, a lady Perry Mason, who will defend the wrongly accused defendants in court. I read and wrote with these goals in mind. (I used to read more in my younger years, and started writing as a young kid, getting my first essay published in a nationwide magazine when I was 14.)  In high school I was picking up causes in defense of classmates or friends who were too timid to speak for themselves before teachers. I was argumentative and always had to have the last word in any discussion. Needless to say, this gave me both a good and a dubious reputation.

Kawayan Camp, Murcia, Negros Occidental

But something happened in my junior year in college. I went to a Christian camp in Southern Philippines for a month. While there, we studied the book of Romans in the Bible’s New Testament, written by the Apostle Paul. Before the camp was over, I made a choice that caused a pivot in my life. This Jesus that I knew from my church experience as my Savior has to be more than that. I read and learned that He bought me at a very high cost. Having accepted Him as my Savior, I thought the whole of me then belonged to Him. The Apostle Paul (and I have no reason not to believe him) says, “You have been bought with a price. You are no longer your own.” If so, then I will live my life the way He would want me to.

Choices make up our lives. Each morning we wake up we actually make choices as to how we respond to things that come our way through the day. Most of the time, we do not have control over what comes our way, but we choose how we respond to it. Geraldine Jones, a character created by the 70’s late comedian Flip Wilson, made the line “The Devil made me do it” famous. We can always justify our poor choices by allowing other people or circumstances to control us. But the truth of the matter is no one can choose for us UNLESS we abdicate this authority to someone else. (Personally, I have stopped saying things like “He made me angry” realizing that no one can make me angry unless I give him control over my emotions.)

That summer of 1960 was the year I made the biggest choice I’ve ever made in my life, and thus impacting all of the other choices I make in my life. The dreams of becoming a famous writer or a crusading lawyer vanished, rather I have become willing to do the bidding of the One who died for me and purchased me with His own blood. And coming to think of it, it has been a wise move. If I were to make my own choices, I would make them based on limited information because I have a finite mind and don’t see all that need to be seen to make correct choices; whereas, the One I have trusted to make my choices has all that. It has been quite a journey, but now that I have more years behind me than I have before me, I am thankful I made that macrocosmic choice that has defined the many microcosmic choices that I have had to make through life. God has given me a life partner who has put up with me so well and has helped me become a better person. Through this partnership we have been blessed with children and grandchildren who have given us so much joy and enrichment. We have been led through experiences that I could never have imagined for us even in my wildest dreams. Some are awesome; some are hurtful and painful but all part of what make life interesting.  Choices, life is all about choices.