“A Man is a success if he gets up in the morning and does what he wants to do.” – Bob Dylan

Life is a complex organism, comprised of existence, of enjoyment, of pain, and most importantly, of failure. It is a prized possession that we all live through – but it is something that we live through only once. It is unfortunate that so many live a life not of their own choosing, but of the wishes and choices of others.

So often you hear of people discussing their livelihoods in a negative connotation. They hate their job. They hate their studies. They hate their life. Ultimately, these failures are the result of ones own inaction in realizing such failures, and the lack of acting upon these learned failures. Steve Jobs follows a great model, one that too many fail to realize. When he wakes up in the morning, if he can not come to terms with something he is to do, be it work, a project, a family event or outing – whatever it may be – if he can not come to find enjoyment in this activity for more than three days in a row, he makes a change. It is through failures that we learn – through dislikes and non-enjoyment that one learns what one likes and does not like.

But the problem is, most people do not do this. In today’s globalized world, corporations rule rather than the individual. Companies operate to please stockholders in world economies, and often operate on a basis of fear that dwindles down to lower-level staff and employees. All of this amounts to pressure that adds increased stress and dissatisfaction to today’s global citizens – including, increasingly, college students. The added pressure to obtain a career immediately after college has forced many to study something they are not passionate about.

The problem is that if you cannot truly say that you enjoy what you do, you are a failure. And in some ways, that is a good thing I think. Learn from these failures and figure out what you want to do with your life. Unfortunately, faced with increasing pressure from outside forces, students blindside themselves to these facts, these failures, and carry on throughout college taking the required courses to obtain their degree.

Through the year and a half that I have attended the University of California, Irvine so far, I have come to realize that many students cannot call themselves what Bob Dylan defines as a successful man. Many students are majoring in subjects determined by their parents or family units. Many students study day and night, sacrificing social elements of our valued life for the grades that they believe will jumpstart themselves into a career path immediately following college. And many students take easy “GPA boosters” to bump up their overall GPA. And consequently, the majority of students in the classes I have taken show up, do the minimum, and leave, without ever consciously being “there” in that class.

The result is an overwhelming surplus of students that just do not care. Students take classes to meet a requirement, a checkmark on a degree audit sheet. Rather than taking classes out of pure interest in the subject, they apply themselves only in the realm of what gets graded. Perhaps this is in part a failure on the education system in this country, perhaps in part a failure on the workplace throughout this world. Nonetheless, it is failing those who really want to learn for learning’s sake, unfortunately, this represents a decreasing population of students.

It wasn’t until Steve Jobs dropped out of college that he began to apply himself. After taking a semester of required courses to graduate, Jobs not only felt the college system inhibiting, but uninteresting. The courses he was passionate about were blocked by major-only restrictions, full, or would prevent his own graduation. So, Jobs made a change, a change many parents would look upon with disgust and disapproval. But, a change that launched Jobs into the success he has seen thus far.

One class Jobs discussed taking after dropping out was a stenography course. This class taught Jobs about the intricacies of stenography, and furthered his passion for the art – an art that eventually made it into the graphical user interface (GUI) of the early Macintosh operating systems, something that has continued to this very day in the Mac.

And so began a passion to develop, change, and think different – all defining elements that separate the Mac platform from its competition and began the personal computing industry. It was the actual interest in learning about subjects that peaked the curiosity and interest of an individual that brought about success for the Mac, for Steve Jobs, and for all of those that attend college to truly learn.

I have become increasingly frustrated, personally, with the mentality of my fellow UCI students (a college with an undergraduate enrollment of approximately 22,000 currently). The first day of class is usually structured around a class syllabus and course outline, describing workloads and examinations throughout the quarter. It is also a time where many students pepper professors and assistants with questions about the format of the midterm and final tests, the lengths, the structure and the material to be present on such tests.

Who cares? I ask myself this at the beginning of every class when a minimum of 10 minutes is devoted to responding to these questions. And usually, the professor does not know yet. I have had a handful of professors simply say just wait and find out. This peppering is ridiculous, and unfortunately representative of the attitudes of students. They are there for a grade, not for learning. They are there to attend class at the beginning of lectures when homework’s or assignments are due, and then they leave. They return to class on examination days, and cram the night before. They ask their friends for help on topics, and store all the information in short term memory, only to throw it out upon completion of the test. There is no true interest in subjects or courses anymore. There are only degree requirements and GPA boosters. This is the college thousands of students attend.

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” -Oscar Wilde

And as this quarter wraps itself up, I walk around campus to find students cramming. They are studying for that final grade. They are trying profusely to find out any information they can about the final exams to be given next week. And they are truly interested in nothing but their final grade. They skip a quarter’s final class when a professor decides to give a life speech, a speech of encouragement, morals, and success. Why? Because it won’t help them on their final.

I stay, for the second time, to hear my business management professor wish us well, to send us off on a journey of unknowns, failures, and hopefully, the individual success that Bob Dylan would have us attain. I have sat through this farewell speech in this professors other class last quarter, but found myself inspired the second time around just as much as I was the first time around. The quotes and morals presented in this 300-some seat lecture hall may have passed right over the heads of those sleeping and those on their Facebook pages over any number of other Internet websites and messaging programs in operation throughout the class, but for those that were listening for listening’s sake, learning for learning’s sake, I can only hope that it is this group of students, of citizens, that will take what they heard, and act upon their lives accordingly.

Try, fail, and stay hungry.

[photo by cheesus]

This phrase, published on the back of the final publication of The Whole Earth Catalog, and repeated by Steve Jobs to the Stanford Graduating Class of 2005, speaks of adventure, of failure, and ultimately, of success. Whether this success is measured in terms of personal, monetary, of professional success, can vary, and much of this measure of success is left to the determination of one entity – you.

In Jobs’ commencement speech, he spoke of life and death, of love and loss, and of connecting the dots. All three of these stories culminate with the same motos operandi, one that can be spelled out one phrase: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. It is through failures that we learn and succeed.

The words spoken by Jobs reverberated throughout the audience. His near death experience with cancer provided him with insight into living that most never attain. Many live their lives for the satisfaction of someone else, be it in a career path that was not of their own choosing or interest, or a marriage that was pre-arranged. The secret to success in life is not how much money you make, nor is it defined by whether you marry to satisfy societal norms. The secret to true success in life is captured if you can honestly say that when you wake up in the morning, you look forward to doing whatever it is you are going to do. All the rest will be taken care of, fall into place itself.

If its your job you hate, change it. If it is your social network you can’t stand, change it. If it is the place you live that disgruntles you, change it. Now, certainly some of this comes with financial risk and monetary needs. But if you can not make sufficient changes to your way of life that will allow you to live a life defined by self rather than others, success has no attainability.

Now this is meant in no way to be a post on Steve Jobs and Apple (I am not one to hide my fascination with the company and its Chief Executive Officer), but it is worth talking about their success, both business and individual, because they achieved such success through this hungry, foolish attitude. Founded in the 70′s by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple was an experiment run by two foolish 20-somethings with a healthy disregard for the impossible (quote by Larry Page, Google Genius and co-founder). It was this outsider technique that inspired the duo to “Think Different,” a company slogan and advertising campaign that lasted for several years, and a personal mantra, a philosophy that differentiated Apple from the rest.

I am reminded of two photographs shown in my business management class this quarter. These photos speak for themselves. Microsoft is a professional culture, one run by traditional corporate moguls, and Apple is a company that, much like Google, has thrown out the rules. They play by their own rule book. It is worth mentioning that there was about a 10-year gap where Apple diverged from this practice, firing Steve Jobs, and running their business to near-bankruptcy after numerous failed experiments and a product line that was large in number but low in quality. Jobs returned in the late 90′s after, ironically, Apple acquired NeXT, the side project Jobs created after his departure from Apple, along with Pixar Animation Studios. You see, despite the anger and emotions felt towards Apple, he still loved what he did. So he continued to pursue what he defined as the success to his own life, a career he loved, a career in technology and business.

Anywho, I digress. It is companies like Apple, Google, Flickr, among many others, that run not on the traditional corporate culture of suite, tie, briefcase, and endless meetings. These companies attain their success by starting from within. They treat their employees with respect, because quite frankly, without their work, their dedication, and their creative genius, the company could not survive. It is to the company’s benefit that they have a staffing problem where they have to turn away so many qualified candidates rather than seek them out.

“You’ve got to find what you love.” -Steve Jobs

If I could identify with one phrase, one saying that could define who I am and what I believe in, it is this. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. The rest just happens.

[photo by Apple Computer]

Public school systems are being threatened with a dramatic decrease in funding, including higher education institutions such as the University of California and the California State University systems. But this financial crisis is already affecting students as well. The State of California has begun deferring payments to schools that participate in the CalGrant Scholarship program. The University of California President Mark Yudof has gone on record guaranteeing that the UC system will absorb the CalGrant Scholarship funds without immediate payment from the State to ease the burden on students, but no such guarantee can be made beyond the Spring Quarter.

This presents a real concern for students already struggling to pay increased tuition fees, and the news gets worse. With the expected decrease in State funding (an approximate loss of $10-12 million in funding for just the UC Irvine campus alone), tuition costs will likely rise another 10%, this coming after a roughly 8% increase for this school year.

The State needs to get its act together. Harsher spending policies need to be implemented and followed. For the most populous State in the nation, California needs reassert its position as a dominant financial and trade center. It needs to present a viable plan to resurface from the red to the black. And raising taxes another full percentage point or higher is not the solution. Given the harsh economic climate, making expenditures more costly by increasing the tax will have an adverse effect on the State’s economy, as it will decrease revenues and consequently, decrease tax income for the State.

We need to climb out of the whole that former Governor Gray Davis created some years ago. We need to once again operate with a surplus, money in the State’s bank. From the Controllers office to the Governors office to the retail and convenience stores that we all visit weekly, changes need to be made to instill confidence in the consumer.

Below is a video message from the University of California President Mark Yudof.

[photo by Wikimedia]

The likes of Garrett Anderson, Tim Salmon, Sandy Koufax, among others, spent their entire careers with their respective teams. What players used to call families, fans call organizations now. Salaries are through the roof, and performance has suffered. The face that represented the sport of baseball in its untainted form, Alex Rodriguez, just admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs. So in an era of tainted performances, what reason do we have to stay loyal to our teams, to our players, and to our sport.

These feelings extend beyond just baseball. Athletes in all sports have become figures above the law. NFL and NBA athletes have been convicted of drug use, possession, of illegal firearm possession and use. And yet, their salaries continue to rise. Yet, their performance continues to decrease; along with it goes their work ethic and dedication to the “team.”

These superhuman attitudes have raised the athletes’ egos and their asking price. Take Manny Ramirez. An undisputed great baseball player, with an undisputed horrible attitude. He has faked injuries, spoken out against his team, talked down teammates, and thrown around his paychecks like they were chump change. Arguably one of the highest paid players in the sport, Ramirez is asking for a career- ending contract that lasts at least four or five years, at Alex Rodriguez pay – the equivalent of between $25-30 million a year.

His performance speaks for itself – when he is on, he is on. In the roughly two months he spent last season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he exceeded his teammates in most categories, matching their season- long performances. But Ramirez was motivated. He was out of Boston, in a new town where fans and citizens not only gave their respect, they left him alone. But he was playing for a contract the next season, a free agent at the end of the season. His parting words as he ascended the players’ elevator for perhaps the final time at Dodger Stadium in Dodger Blue – “May the highest bidder win.”

The Dodgers organization has been more than willing to pony up the money. The team has placed three generous offers on the table – all of which Ramirez’s representatives quickly turned down. It is worth mentioning that Ramirez is represented by the infamous Scott Boras Enterprises. All emotions aside, this sports agency represents the scum of the scum. Boras is known for his ability to squeeze every last penny out of teams when negotiating the contracts of his clientele (and when I say penny, I am speaking on a scale of millions).

The point I am trying to make is that sports have become outrageously defined by money, salaries that rival those of some CEO’s. In such tough economic times, why should players be given so much money? It inflates their ego, and often times degrades their performance. With the comfort of a long-term, multi-million dollar contract, players lose the incentive to perform to their highest ability. And sports teams are no different – they try to run themselves like efficient, profit producing machines.

Salary negotiations are still ongoing with Ramirez, as talks between the two parties continue. Spring Training has already begun, Ramirez remains unsigned, and teams are looking for closure. Given the state of the economy, the financial burdens teams are facing currently will more than likely prevent Ramirez from getting the length of contract he desires. But, the money has been thrown out there by the Dodgers organization. We will see what happens. But for baseball’s sake, something needs to happen. And it needs to happen from the top. The Office of the Commissioner needs to make changes, and they need to be made soon. Whether it is a salary cap or tighter rules and restrictions on contracts, Bug Selig needs to take steps to bring baseball back to what it used to be – a sport, not a business.

[photo by Zkonedog]