Beyond the tragedy of his passing at age 56, Steve Jobs’ death created an interesting ripple effect with many folks I know my age.

I remember back, around 1985 I think, walking into my Dad’s office and telling him we needed to spend $30,000 on a new computer — one new computer. It was the beginning of “desktop publishing,” and it was a remarkable, exciting time.

Folks like me who did not study graphic art in college were able to make the switch from account service to creative, simply because we knew how to run Adobe Freehand — the days of spec’ing type and cutting Amberlith (which my spell checker doesn’t recognize as a word) were over.

For most artists it was truly a revolution — the ability to see your typography right in front of you; change it, make it bigger, smaller, move it around the page, adjust kerning and leading — it was the impossible made possible. Some of the “older artists” resisted this dramatic change, and in a few short years were obsolete and changing careers. I remember a number of sad interviews with seasoned graphic artists, who had not learned how to run a Mac, pleading their computer inability would not be a liability. They were wrong.

A number of years later, after prices had come down and the Mac was a mainstay in the graphic arts community, Jobs was run off from Apple and things started getting ugly, quick. Motherboards were soldered in so you couldn’t change or fix them. Nothing was compatible, even to the point of software and OS conflicts with products straight out of the box. Apple’s new management was trying to make money by screwing the rabid faithfulness of their customers. It was horrible, we felt betrayed, and it was not sustainable.

Jobs was brought back as Apple was teetering on the abyss and the rest is history. Apple is one of the world’s favorite brands, making the impossible possible every two years or so. Poking around their website brings my blood pressure down. I confess, I love their brand and feel proud when I pull my Mac laptop out in a crowded airport — remembering the old days, where that act as a “Mac user” assured comment from a curious stranger. Now, PC people huddle in the shadows with their “try to be Mac” laptops and their stunningly unfriendly operating systems.

From what I’ve read, Steve Jobs was worth north of $7 billion when he died. And it couldn’t buy him another breath of life. He talked a lot about his family, specifically his kids in his last days.

James said it best, “You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You are just a vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes away.” James 4:14.

I turned 53 a week or so before Jobs died at 56. His death was acknowledged with classic Apple brilliance and powerful simplicity on their website, almost every headline about his life included the word “genius,” and like an Apple new-product introduction, his biography hit the bookstores mere weeks after his passing. I know money cannot buy happiness, I know that in my bones. But I also know that money does open doors — the more you have, the more doors you can open. Certainly Steve Jobs had the financial horsepower to open every medical door available to man, and it wasn’t enough (even though it did get him a new liver years back). He still died, tragically young.

You start having a profound sense of “I’m running out of time” when you turn 50. Or maybe 52, but most folks I know my age agree. Guys like Jobs dying at 56 amplify this feeling. And I’m not talking about a “bucket list,” or jumping out of a perfectly good airplane to prove our mettle or inject a needed rush of adrenaline to combat decades of corporate drudgery. I think, and Jobs illustrated this, it is those last fleeting days of life that can teach so much.

When my father died of lung cancer at age 64, he spent his last days at home — which was a blessing. In the end, he was laying in his bed, heavily medicated to control the pain but remarkably peaceful — which was a bigger blessing. In the last hours of his life, I leaned into his ear and said, “Dad, don’t be afraid.” He didn’t open his eyes, but whispered back ...

“I’m not afraid.”

And there it is, really. Fear. I wonder how many times in my Father’s life he could honestly say he wasn’t afraid. For most of us, especially men, I think this is a rare event, as we are often ruled and motivated by fear. So much so, as the years become decades we have no clue the role fear plays in our lives. Until, of course, at the very end of our lives.

I want to learn from all of this. I want to be able to see how fear weaves in and out of my life, and overcome it. Or at least recognize it. I want to be a good husband, father and provider because of the distinct honor of doing so — motivated by my aging sense of character and purpose, not fear of failure.

I want to be a good boss, which is hard. Fear in business plays a massive role in what we do. We want to succeed, yes. But more so, we don’t want to fail. It is a chicken or the egg type thing. Do we work hard, often times too hard, because we are working to grow and advance our careers and company? Or do we work hard because we feel a recession and heartbreaking national unemployment in close pursuit. It is probably a bit of both, but there’s a big difference between understanding the brutal realities of a competitive marketplace, and being wholly motivated by fear. Big difference.

Fear comes in a lot of different flavors, especially in the creative business. There have been a number of studies about what best produces creative thought, with stress being at the top of the list. Which is why so many creatives wait until the last minute with their work. By doing so they self-impose the stress needed to trigger the creative juice the job requires.

Which is heartbreaking, for two reasons:

1) It works. There’s no question about that.
2) They are conceding the creative process must be stress-motivated and doom themselves to a career that requires self-imposed stress to produce the creative work they desire. Yuck.

I want to work against that.

How many blogs have been written about Steve Jobs? Who knows. Lots. But anything that triggers an understanding of our remarkably limited time in this life, especially when you’re in the late third, or early fourth quarter, is a good thing. I don’t want to be motivated, driven or paralyzed by fear.

I want to live my life with the confidence my Father had in the last moments of his life. I read Steve Jobs’ last words were, “Wow, wow, wow.” How great it would be to feel that way about tomorrow.