I think everyone agrees that Steve Jobs was awesome. I'm not a big fan of Apple products, but I would not argue with that assessment.

That's why he really doesn't have that much useful advice to give to the rest of us. Even an interesting commencement speech is pretty boring, and life is too short to listen to commencement speeches when not actually waiting to get a diploma, so I have not listened to his, today seemingly inescapable speech, but I pretty know what's in it.

How to be awesome.  That's really like advice on how to be tall, or how to be beautiful. Tall, beautiful people tend to be given more chances to have good lives than short, ugly people, so it stands to reason that you'd try to be one.

But as a short, ugly, unawesome American, what I want is help getting just a little better. How to lose a pound or two, or crank out another pullup, or finish that story, or get through my workday a bit more cheerfully, or do something for my wife that makes her happy. If I think about being awesome, I will not be able to do any of those things. And they're pretty much the only goals I will be able to actually achieve.