What Steve Jobs wrote to himself in his final email, a message the world wasn't supposed to see

We all know how the story of Steve Jobs is told: the visionary, the perfectionist, the man who took the stage and changed the world more than once.

But in his final days, battling cancer, the co-founder of Apple was thinking about something else entirely. He wasn't thinking about the next big thing. He was thinking about everything that had already been built that made his life possible.

Just days before he passed away on October 5, 2011, Steve opened his iPad and sent an email. The recipient? Himself. It was a private note, a moment of reflection never meant for a public audience. But thanks to the Steve Jobs Archive, a website launched by his wife Laurene, Tim Cook, and Jony Ive, we get to see this incredibly vulnerable and human side of a man we thought we knew.

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Here it is, exactly as he wrote it:

From: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.com To: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.com Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 11:08PM

I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds. I do not make any of my own clothing. I speak a language I did not invent or refine. I did not discover the mathematics I use. I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate. I am moved by music I did not create myself. When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive. I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with. I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.