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The question

What do you need to believe in order to get through an ordinary day?

Originally asked

Vox, to writers and thinkers, 9 Questions, 2017

Vox used this exact prompt throughout its named 9 Questions series on intellectual habits.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Steve Jobs

Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.

Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone, conducted at NeXT's offices in Redwood City, 16 June 1994 source ↗

Others on this question

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Tom Lubbock Art critic
It's not possible to get any distance from my project: being alive. Objectively, from the outside you might say, my life is terrible, unbelievable. And it's true, I hate this. I hate the way I am at the moment. But there is no objective view, I am here, in it, and there is nothing else, and this fact brings with it many things that make it of course easier. And beyond that there are many other things to think about.
Recorded The Observer, from the journals he kept between 2008 and 2010, 7 November 2010 source ↗
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Developmental biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1995
I sing yes sure and I garden, I have a large garden and I really recreate myself by doing gardening and thinking about something else so that when your mind gets free from all the burden of the daily troubles and then you can start putting something fresh in, you know.
Recorded Marika Griehsel, Interview at the 53rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, 30 June–4 July 2003, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 July 2003 source ↗
Tony Judt Historian and essayist
During the day I can at least request a scratch, an adjustment, a drink, or simply a gratuitous re-placement of my limbs—since enforced stillness for hours on end is not only physically uncomfortable but psychologically close to intolerable. It is not as though you lose the desire to stretch, to bend, to stand or lie or run or even exercise. But when the urge comes over you there is nothing—nothing—that you can do except seek some tiny substitute or else find a way to suppress the thought and the accompanying muscle memory.
Recorded The New York Review of Books, 14 January 2010 issue, 14 January 2010 source ↗
Henry Marsh Neurosurgeon and writer
For the last few weeks, I've been completely happy. I've got my next PSA in three weeks' time. It may well show my PSA is starting to go up, and the cancer's coming back. Totally to my surprise, I've acquired this sort of Buddhist Zen outlook. Well, the future doesn't exist. I'm well. I'm happy at the moment. I've had a wonderful, exciting life. I've made lots of mistakes. I've trampled on people - yak, yak, yak, as I discuss in my books. But at the moment, today, the sun is shining. I'm very well. It's not that I'm in denial, but I think, well, all right. It may be bad news in three weeks' time, but that's three weeks away. At the moment, I'm well.
Recorded Scott Simon, Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR, 21 January 2023 source ↗

More from Steve Jobs

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Question How does a new piece of work usually begin for you? Craft & work
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
Recorded Gary Wolf, Wired 4.02, February 1996 source ↗
Question What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore? Time & hindsight
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.
Recorded Stanford University 114th Commencement, Stanford News (Stanford University), 12 June 2005 source ↗
Question What do you do when you feel creatively stuck? Craft & work
We called that the 'story crisis,' and we never expected to have another one. But you know what? There's been one on every film. We don't stop production for five months. We've gotten a little smarter about it. But there always seems to come a moment where it's just not working, and it's so easy to fool yourself - to convince yourself that it is when you know in your heart that it isn't.
Recorded Betsy Morris, Fortune interview, Kona, Hawaii, March 2008 source ↗
Question What lesson has mattered most in your life? Time & hindsight
I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing. There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up. I don't blame them. Its really tough and it consumes your life.
Recorded Daniel Morrow, Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program, 20 April 1995 source ↗
Question Who makes your work possible behind the scenes? Craft & work
You're missing it. This is not a one-man show. What's reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there's a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they're not losers. What they didn't have was a good set of coaches, a good plan.
Recorded Andy Reinhardt, Business Week Q&A in the Apple boardroom, extended online-only version, 25 May 1998 source ↗

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