Drive Thru. . .
Whatever Has Been…Has Been
Week of July 4th
June 13, 2010, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the fourth-generation iPhone. It’s just one more achievement for Apple, now the largest tech company in the world, worth well over $220 billion.
The story of Apple’s founding is the stuff of legend in Silicon Valley. Two young programmers, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created the company out of nothing. But what most people don’t know is that there was a third founder — Ron Wayne.
On April Fools’ Day 1976, he got together with Jobs and Wozniak to write Apple’s incorporation document. He typed up the three pages himself, and even designed the company’s first logo.
Then 12 days later, Wayne left Apple and a 10 percent stake in the company that today would be worth billions. Wayne now lives in a modest home in Pahrump, Nev., just outside Las Vegas — and survives, primarily, off his Social Security check and a small business selling vintage coins.
Wayne, Apple’s “lost” third founder, says he has no regrets.
“Whatever has been, has been,” said Wayne. “I learned a long time ago not to ‘what if’ ‘ these things.”(In an interview on National Public Radio)
Now in fairness don’t think that he was simply kicked to the curb by Apple. After Apple made it big, Jobs offered Wayne employment with the company — twice. But Wayne refused. “I like to take things from beginning to end,” said Wayne. “Where I can wear six or seven hats. I couldn’t do that at Apple.”
Wayne doesn’t even own any Apple products. How can a person live without an ipod? But he’s content with his life and happy for Jobs. “I’ve never been rich,” Wayne said. “But I’ve never been hungry, either.”
Interesting huh? Most people are not aware that Apple even had a third founder. Not wanting to speak too specifically about Ron Wayne, since I know very little about his life, I do want to point out a couple of spiritual lessons in what he said.
Whatever has been, has been…a statement that might cause us to say, “duh!”
Before we ignore it let me ask you a question, “do you live your life with a whatever has been, has been attitude?”
You see I know a lot of people, even followers, who have let the past define them and never have moved beyond it. I guess each person has some things in the past they would like to forget but some are content not to live with the past but to dwell there, obsess there, and sometimes worship the past in unhealthy ways. It takes shape in a lot of ways. Some are perpetual victims, some are always angry, some are brazenly bitter, and others just plain messed up. The past does impact us forever, there is no doubt. But what you do with the past, how you let it shape you, the lessons you learn from it, and how you move beyond it are all choices that we make as individuals.
As I so often tell you the call of Christ is a call forward. Following involves us moving the footprints that the Savior has placed before us. The call to follow is forward not backwards.
One other thing Wayne mentioned is that he had never been rich but he had never been hungry either. In other words he has had enough, what he needed, and he recognizes it.
In life we may not always have what we want but the Father has promised to make sure we have what we need.
I don’t know about you but if I walked away from Apple before it made a gazillion dollars I might be a little bit upset, I might be crying that I deserved better, and I might be tempted to ask for a piece of the pie (or a bite of the apple, so to speak) And yet there are some spiritual lessons that can be learned from an unknown, unheralded, and uncompensated founder of one of the companies that has revolutionized culture.
Which of course brings me to my last spiritual note, even though you may feel or think no one knows or cares who you are…you can still be a person who is making a difference…you might even change the culture forever.
An Apple a day…
Jeff
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e-mail Jeff at jdixon@touchandchange.com