I would not be able to write such stuff with a straight face. Every human should be able to say the same. At best you’re saying he completely lost himself to hubris and was taking baby steps to approach something vaguely typical.
I've written reminders of virtues to myself. It's not that weird. You say you wouldn't write it with a straight face, which is basically saying that you judge him for it. To which I'd say, get over it; everyone gets to handle their stuff in their own way. He surely didn't intend for you to read this. I'm sure you've done things in private which others would cringe at as well, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do them.
Of course there's no way to know, but you may be a little too naive to think that he wasn't considering the fact that people would read this. And then his wife published it. If it's even real, it reminds me of Bill Gates buying himself a Netflix special to clean up his public persona. At least Bill saved some people from malaria.
Could be that he expected it to be public. I don't think it matters much to the question of whether judging it at a personal level is okay; the above commenter expressed their belief that _anyone_ doing this is worthy of judgment and I think that's reprehensible.
It’s fine for it to simultaneously be bad that you’re egotistical; good that you’re introspective about it; and net all kind of underwhelming imo. This particular set of notes does not communicate a strong self of self awareness.
That is, the grand scale of jobs’ observations suggest to me he thinks he is being worldly despite his success, not being humble because he is in fact not better than others. Like no shit Steve, you did not invent math. A lot of your shit you just lifted from xerox frankly.
Snark aside. Humility that is self evident to oneself is different than humility that one asserts themself into. Steve is still just some guy even if he single handedly invented all those things that he did not. He is not merely human because of this.
This isn’t the kind of thing someone writes if they truly believe deep down that they are equal to others. Even if it argues just that.
If you were one of the most successful people on the planet and at the head of a company that deified you, you could probably do with a memento mori as well.
I would not be able to write such stuff with a straight face. Every human should be able to say the same. At best you’re saying he completely lost himself to hubris and was taking baby steps to approach something vaguely typical.