Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.
I remember January 6, 1984 like it was yesterday: My dad and sister went to an electronics store and brought home our first VCR. My mom and I went to one of Knoxville's only computer stores and brought home our first computer, an Apple IIe.
Like so many filmmakers, my life been shaped by the fusion, the intermingling, and the collision of the motion picture with the personal computer. That I was introduced to both of these on the same day -- on Epiphany, no less -- is so "poetic" that it'd be a cliche if you read it in a story or saw it in a movie. But that's the way it happened, honest.
More than any other person that I can think of, Steve Jobs is responsible for bringing together motion pictures and the computer. Jobs' influence on both fields would be hard to overstate.
For me personally, Jobs' life work -- that is, the things he made or had a hand in making -- directly led to me pursuing my life's work, work that is, for me, the kind he spoke of in his commencement address at Stanford, quoted above.
So it seems appropriate at this moment -- on the day of his passing -- to say, "Thank you, Mr. Jobs, and rest in peace."
Here's one more quote from that 2005 commencement speech:
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.