One Less Maverick

Yes this is another post about Steve Jobs leaving Apple, but not quite either. This post may just possibly be about you.

The announcement of Jobs stepping down as CEO was met with universal grief, akin to a death. Stock issues and Apple's future aside, majority lamented the end of an era marked, uniquely, by one man's ethos. One man.

In a world where you learn to acquiesce to mediocrity for survival, and consensus and conformity are prized, Jobs perversely chose the thornier path. He pursued a vision of design, function and aesthetics that made sense to him, not the world. And the world's collective breath was taken away because his ideas were always bold, risky and one step ahead of the times.

How many of us have shelved ideas that got shredded by committees and the unimaginative? Who among us have stopped initiating creative, provocative projects that the mainstream will reject? More poignantly, who has eschewed originality for banality because it is what the public wants?

We need our mavericks in life, if only to reiterate that being different -- or thinking different, as Apple's famous ad goes -- is what drives humanity's progress. It was the mavericks who were inventors, civilisation-builders, discoverers of unknown lands. 

We mourn the end of the Jobs era, but in some ways we are really mourning ourselves. To go against the grain, take risks and not fear the consequences -- he did what we always secretly wanted to do. 

Jobs may leave a vacuum but all is not lost. Apple's success is proof that being true to yourself is possible and profitable. Here's hoping we find even just a little spark of something similar in ourselves. Here's hoping you find the Steve Jobs in you.