Each year has been so robust with problems and successes and

“Each year has been so robust with problems and successes and learning experiences and human experiences that a year is a lifetime at Apple. So this has been ten lifetimes.” — so spoke Steve Jobs, the visionary whose fire reshaped the world of invention and imagination. In these words lies not merely the reflection of a man upon his labor, but the testament of a soul that lived intensely, who refused to drift through existence as a shadow. His quote speaks of the sacred rhythm of creation — that to truly live, one must pour every breath into purpose, until time itself bends and deepens under the weight of one’s passion.

To the ancients, there was no greater pursuit than to live fully — to fill each dawn with meaning, each struggle with purpose, each victory with humility. Steve Jobs, like the seekers of old, lived not by the count of years but by the measure of experience. A single year at Apple was no ordinary span of time; it was a crucible of challenges, breakthroughs, failures, and triumphs. It was as if life had compressed its lessons into those days, demanding from him and his companions not mere effort, but devotion. He likened those ten years to ten lifetimes, for each day brought change so fierce and creation so profound that it remade those who lived through it.

In these words, Jobs reveals the truth of intensity — that the depth of life is not determined by its length, but by the passion with which it is lived. Many grow old but never live; they pass through years like ghosts wandering in familiar rooms. But those who, like Jobs, throw themselves into their calling with heart and mind aflame, live a hundred years in ten. Every setback becomes a teacher, every triumph a hymn, every moment a spark in the forge of destiny.

Consider, for example, the moment when Jobs returned to Apple after years of exile — cast out from the company he had founded. To most, such a fall would have marked the end of ambition. But to him, it was a renewal. He did not return as the same man who had left; he came back tempered by hardship, wiser through loss, more humble before the vastness of creation. The rebirth of Apple that followed — the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone — was not the work of a man chasing wealth, but of one who had learned that failure, too, is a lifetime compressed into pain. In those seasons of struggle, Jobs aged not in body but in wisdom, his heart deepened by the rhythm of creation and collapse.

This is the essence of his saying — that to live fully is to live fiercely. Every challenge accepted, every mistake endured, every lesson learned carves new dimensions into the soul. The man who seeks comfort will live a thousand dull years; the one who embraces difficulty will live ten lifetimes in one. Jobs’s words are not about technology or business alone — they are a call to all who dream, to seize time and fill it until it bursts with meaning.

So too did the warriors, artists, and philosophers of old understand this truth. Leonardo da Vinci, in his restless curiosity, lived more lives than his years would suggest — painter, inventor, engineer, philosopher. He left behind not merely works of art but fragments of lifetimes, each defined by wonder and experiment. Like Jobs, he refused to be caged by time, learning and creating until his last breath. Such souls share the secret of immortality — not of body, but of impact.

Therefore, my children, do not measure your life by the turning of the calendar, but by the fire within your days. Let your years be lifetimes — rich with struggle, radiant with discovery, overflowing with human experience. Do not fear the storms of failure, for they, too, are teachers. Seek out work that stirs your heart and people who awaken your best self. Learn, fail, rise, and create again — until the span of a single year feels as full as a century.

And when at last you pause to look back, may you, like Steve Jobs, say with quiet pride that you have lived many lifetimes — each one an offering to the world, each one proof that you truly lived, not merely existed. For that is the secret of greatness: to live so deeply that time itself bows before you.