人生真的可以有所不同嗎?

古語有云:「一年之計在於春,一日之計在於晨。」我們在不同的人生階段都曾寫下一個個計劃,涉及學業、工作、個人興趣、朋友、家庭、社區關係等等,有些或者微不足道,有些卻真的是一個宏願,但不論這些計劃時大時小,有多少能夠真正付諸行動成功呢?真的是寥寥可數。大多數的人的生活只是早上醒來,趕着上班上學,忙碌而沒有效率,晚上便拖着疲倦的身軀上床睡覺,明天醒來有機械式地重複做一些好像是不喜歡卻又躲避不了的事情。一天復一天,一年復一年,人生一眨眼就飛逝而過。真正的原因其實是我們並不懂得傾聽自己生命的聲音罷了。

大多數人希望人生活得有意義、有成就感和有目的,能為家人和社會帶來希望與喜樂。我們知道我們想要與眾不同,活出自己的生命,而不是一個生命的旅客,坐看時間流逝,仍然不知道下一步應該怎樣走。生命應該被啟發,而不是胡混過去;生命應該過得有意義,而非庸庸碌碌。

我們必須覺醒!從混亂的生活狀態中解脫出來,每天給自己更多的自由時間,選擇每一刻要將注意力放在你生命中最有意義的事,而不是更多的事。可能你會覺得自己並沒有時間,但是沒有規劃就去做更難,到頭來反而會讓你賠上更多時間,甚至賠上人生,因為你的時間都浪費在沒有意義的事情上面。

你追求什麼的人生,機會就在你追求的過程中等待你,而你必須先採取行動才行。關於這個行動,多數的成功故事都是討論怎樣跨出「第一步」,但實際上可能是最後一步才是最重要、最具挑戰性的。舉例說,你的夢想是嘗試高空跳傘,感受穿越天空的興奮感,你需要先到有高空跳傘的飛行場地,簽下風險同意書,在地面進行訓練,然後登上飛機, 飛機在幾分鐘內就到達14,500尺的高度,你的心卻開始在興奮與恐懼間躊躇擺盪。機艙門打開,冷空氣與難以置信的噪音撲向你,每朝艙門跨出一步,都需要很大力氣才辦得到,到了最後一步,我們雙手交叉站在門邊,把腳伸到門外,和一個不相識的教練一起跳了下去。就像你要完成這個高空跳傘旅程一樣, 你要先了解達成人生目標所需要的工具與資源,找到願意支持、鼓勵你的人,也需要有經驗、有智慧的人,能在人生旅程上一路指引你方向。你需要心靈導師與朋友去激發自己最大的潛能,當你勇敢時,他們會跟着你一起前進;在你害怕時,他們仍會鼓勵你繼續向前行。

你的人生是你所專注的一切的總和。價值觀加上注意力與選擇,就是有意識的覺醒,就是懂得選擇要將注意力集中在哪裏。當你開始謹慎選擇注意力的分配方式時，你就開始踏上了覺醒的旅程,朝着更有意義的生活前進。

Empower yourself to be creator using technology!

誰還未發聲 誰要認命噤聲

http://thehousenews.com/politics/誰還未發聲-誰要認命噤聲/

功利主義和普世人權

人都受制於苦樂之感，苦與樂是我們的「主人」，主宰我們的一言一行，決定了我們什麼應該不應該。人都喜歡快樂，討厭痛苦，功利哲學它當作事實，並以為道德與政治的根本。功利最大化不僅是處準則，也是立法準則，政府在斟酌立法與施政之際，應盡可能為社群全體帶來最大幸福，何為社群？社群其實是個假想的團體，是組成個人的加總，公民與立法者因此應該問問自己：把政策將會帶來的所有好處相加，再扣除所有代價，會比他種做法帶來更大的幸福嗎？ 大家嘴裡也許會說自己相信某些絶對、至高的權利義務，例如相信人權是普世價值，人權的依據不應該是功利。但若不相信這些權利義務得到尊重會帶來人類幸福的最大增進(至少在長期)，這些權利務根本就没有任何捍衛基礎。如果有人打算反對功利原則，一定會不自覺地從功利原則本身去找反對理由。所有原則的爭論在某個層面上，爭的都是增樂減口的功利原則應該口何應用。 人可以移動地球嗎？可以，但必須先找到他可以站在上面的另一顆地球。而目前現有的唯一地球，唯一前提，原則爭論的唯一立足點，就是功利原則。功利原則提供了一種可做政治改革基礎的道德科學。 舉例有座圓形監獄，監控塔在中央，囚徒看不到獄吏，獄吏卻能把囚徒一覽無遺，如果我們把這座全觀監獄交由民間經營，犯人一天工作十六小時，經營者善盡經營之責，換取犯人勞動帶來的利潤。這個計劃跑在時代前面，但近年英美兩國已經有監獄交由民間企業經營，而且效果不錯，有逐漸普及的趨勢。 許多人認為，功利主義的最明顯缺失就是不尊重個人權利，只關注增樂減苦的總和，可能會把個人踐踏在腳下。其實功利主義也是看個人的，但其看重方式卻把人人的偏好都計算在內，無一 掛漏，以這一點的邏輯推演下去，是有可能會某些違犯常規、損人尊嚴的待人方式。 舉例在偵訊恐怖分子嫌疑犯時，到底可不可以嚴刑迫供呢？想想有一顆定時炸彈正滴滴答答等著引爆，你是中情局某分局的負責人，你逮到一名恐怖分子嫌疑犯，據報當天稍後將有個核子裝置在國金引爆，你相信他知道內。事實上你根本就有理由相信他本身就是炸彈客。時間一分一秒流逝，他卻拒絶承認是恐怖分子，也堅時持不透露炸彈地點，對他動刑，直到他招出炸彈地點與拆彈方法為止，這様有錯嗎？ 有些人原則上反對嚴刑迫供，認為它侵犯人權，對人的基本尊嚴有失尊重，他們不從功利考量出發，主張人權與人格具冇某種無關功利的道德基礎。表面上，炸彈即將引爆的場景好像是支持功利主義的。人命多寡是應該要影響道德考量的。寧失同舟三條人命也不該冷血殺一無辜是一回事，但這次卻事關數千無辜人命，那又當如何？數十萬條人命呢？ 案情略為修改，拿掉罪嫌深重的成份，功利主義誤導推斷的問題就會出現。假設逼嫌疑犯招供的唯一方法是拷打他的小女兒，而這名小妹妹對爸爸的恐怖惡行全不知情。道德上這是允許的嗎？恐怕連死硬的功利主義者也不敢苟同，這種案情就是對功利主義原則的真正考驗。 現在我們的政治困局又是否正陷於功利主義和人權的普世價值的取捨呢？不同時代、不同國度的人選擇都不一樣，我們現在必須選擇，歷史會告訴我們是對還是錯。

人生最黑暗時期 - 2013

慌

經濟重心東移 香港「百毒不侵」

近日環球金融市場風高浪急，十分凶險。歐洲國家債務問題纏擾不休，意大利遭評級機構下調主權評級，希臘失業率高達16%，美國總統奧巴馬更高調宣布向富有人士和大企業加稅，以支援其總值4,000億美元（按：約3萬多億港元）的刺激就業方案。負面消息一個接一個，使本港市場亦人心虛怯。上月統計處公布本港經濟數據，第二季出口表現受外圍拖累，以致經濟增長只有5.1%。翌日即有大型銀行的經濟師分析指本港技術上已進入衰退，甚至有滯脹風險。

通脹續升溫 滯脹暫不可能

香港通脹繼續升溫不是新聞，但說會出現滯脹則不大可能。當大家注視着第二季增長放緩時，似乎沒有人留意首季經濟增長由初步的7.2%向上修訂為7.5%（見圖一）。2010年首季增長已高達8%，因此本年首季增長絕非源於基數效應。更重要的是私人消費實質增長持續加快，第二季更達9.2%。零售銷售數據亦與這個數字互相呼應︰7月零售額按年上升29%——增幅之大可能令人以為這是中國內地而非本港數據。

另一方面，固定投資亦表現優秀，第二季投資增長8.1%。現時香港接近全民就業，工資與租金上漲壓力高企，增加人手或空間（寫字樓或舖位）的成本太高，企業要擴大規模只能倚賴增加設備、電腦和培訓等以提升員工生產力，加上隨着各項基建持續上馬，私人和政府的資本開支只會有增無減。私人消費與固定投資佔本地生產總值近九成（按︰過去20年平均值），在這兩個部分的帶動下，縱使外圍經濟風起雲湧，要香港出現經濟衰退相信十分困難。

這一切一切，其實都在描述着一齣正在上演的電影：在全球經濟周期性放緩的氛圍下，香港作為一個開放經濟，很難說完全「獨善其身」，但這環球周期性放緩卻被香港的結構性高增長所抵銷。筆者認為，在全球經濟重心西向東移的大趨勢下，香港看似「百毒不侵」只是整齣電影的一個章節。

2008至2009年環球金融危機期間，投資推廣署協助進駐企業的數目仍然節節上升（見圖二）；單是今年上半年，海外到港公司近200間，已是去年總數七成。投資推廣署預期，今年成績勢將「更勝去年」。

歐美債務隨身 東方資金充裕

事實上，經濟重心東移不是一件新鮮的事。隨着新興市場如金磚四國等崛起，東方經濟為全球經濟帶來愈來愈大的增長動力，聯合國的世界投資報告亦顯示，2010年發展中經濟佔全球境外直接投資比重首次超越發達經濟體（見圖三）。金融海嘯只是加快了這個東移過程︰由於西方國家過去半世紀過度借貸以支持他們的消費模式，不斷把債務延續（roll over）。但正如筆者初出道時的上司，當時的亞洲投行界首席分析員說：「債務永遠隨身（Debt never goes away）。」

今時今日，歐美各國被迫推行緊縮政策，大幅削減福利開支，加稅甚至以倍數增加大學學費，以致公務員罷工、市民暴動，一切都源於這種不顧後果的借貸。無怪乎債券大王格羅斯最近亦撰文指「債務是邪惡的（Debt is evil）」。相比之下，東方經濟不但負債輕微，而且儲蓄率高，現金充裕，使得跨國企業亦愈來愈注視東方（特別是中國）市場流動性和龐大的潛在購買力。

這種全球經濟的重新洗牌對香港的影響極之深遠︰且看世界最大的化工企業巴斯夫（BASF）選擇繼續把亞太區總部設在香港——即使香港沒有化工廠；最大零售商沃爾瑪（Walmart）在香港設立新的亞洲總部、名列「財富500」（Fortune 500）第四位（2010）的通用電氣（General Electric）亦在本港設立「全球增長及營運總部」，最近甚至有傳連法拉利（Ferrari）也希望在港上市。

商業世界內流動可以產生更多流動（Flows beget flows），以剛在港上市集資的奢侈品牌Prada為例：其實香港根本不是最多Prada最終消費者（end users）的地方，Prada關注的，明顯是中國內地的市場。但香港偏偏就有這個優勢：內地人深信在香港買到正貨手袋的機會遠比在內地城市高，所以才使尖沙咀的旗艦店門庭若市。亦因此，當Prada選擇集資市場，也是香港而非上海。

「流動產生流動」 造就港經濟

這正正造就了香港經濟最強的一環︰服務業輸出。服務業輸出不像貨品貿易，這邊廂把貨品造好隨即入箱上船，那邊廂即拿着客人的信用證提款。服務業輸出基本上就是「進口客人」﹕世界各地遊客不遠千里到香港消費，使用我們的服務，經濟得以蓬勃發展。

以Prada為例，製造手袋的生產綫不在香港，使用手袋的消費者亦（大部分）不是香港人——但偏偏，幫整間企業上市的投資銀行卻在香港，投資銀行家的花紅固然十分可觀；整條生產綫中利潤最深的零售部門又在香港，推銷員的收入亦水漲船高；甚至替顧客把「戰利品」捧回酒店的服務員以及開的士的司機也一併受惠。這一切都歸功於我們世界一流的服務水平。

結果，原本市場預期Prada的股價會比路易．威登（LV）低，最後Prada在香港的股價表現遠比LV出色。不難想像，作為Prada的主要競爭對手，假如LV選擇要在亞洲集資，也非香港莫屬。再想深一層，假如Prada和LV都在港上市，其他國際奢侈品牌會怎樣做？又想想，假如連國際一綫企業如沃爾瑪和通用電氣都把總部遷至香港，市值規模比他們小的公司又會否跟隨？這就是所謂的「流動產生流動」。

香港的服務業如此密集（佔本地產值93%），在全球經濟重心西向東移的大趨勢下，只要我們願意在這幾年努力鎖緊這些機遇，香港要經濟繁榮和社會穩定，甚至超越倫敦，追趕紐約，成為真正的國際金融中心，指日可待。

（系列之四）

（香港黃金五十社區研討會︰www.hkgolden50.org）

撰文:林奮強 香港黃金五十創辦人
系列名:香港黃金50年系列

Steve Jobs - shadow never fade out

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. 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. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

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.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

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.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.