October 6, 2011 | 3:58 pm

Thank You Steve Jobs For Teaching Me to Think Different

Posted by Tamara Shayne Kagel

Follow JewishJournal.com on

In 1997, as a teenager, I saw the best commercial ever created.  It was part of the Think Different campaign for Apple.  There was no youtube back then so I watched it over and over on tv till I memorized the words.  I wrote them down on the front inside cover of my diary and I looked at them daily for years.  Over the years, I would think about those words often as I imagined Martha Graham clicking her heels together and Albert Einstein’s hair being ruffled.  Steve Jobs served as a constant reminder to me that it was ok to be weird or different or even crazy.  And so I too would like to join the many voices out there thanking him.  Not just for every piece of electronic equipment I own, but for encouraging me to think different and showing me the immense richness the Round Pegs could bring to the world.

If this commercial were to be made today, I imagine his familiar turtle-necked image would be included….

Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon (with Yoko Ono), Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Graham, Jim Henson (with Kermit the Frog), Frank Lloyd Wright and Pablo Picasso.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify and vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as crazy, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”