選擇比天賦更重要
As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas.
在我還是個孩子的時候，夏天總是在德州祖父母的農(nóng)場中度過。
I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores.
我?guī)兔π蘩盹L(fēng)車，為牛接種疫苗，也做其它家務(wù)。
We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially “Days of our Lives.”
每天下午，我們都會看肥皂劇，尤其是《我們的歲月》。
My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada.
我的祖父母參加了一個房車俱樂部，那是一群駕駛Airstream拖掛型房車的人們，他們結(jié)伴遍游美國和加拿大。
And every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We’d hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather’s car,
每隔幾個夏天，我也會加入他們。我們把房車掛在祖父的小汽車后面，
and off we’d go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers.
然后加入300余名Airstream探險者們組成的浩蕩隊(duì)伍。
I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips.
我愛我的祖父母，我崇敬他們，也真心期盼這些旅程。
On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old.
那是一次我大概十歲時的旅行，
I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving.
我照例坐在后座的長椅上，祖父開著車，祖母坐在他旁邊，吸著煙。我討厭煙味。
And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.
祖母坐在他旁邊，吸著煙。我討厭煙味。
At that age, I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage --
在那樣的年紀(jì)，我會找任何借口做些估測或者小算術(shù)。
figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking.
我會計算油耗還有雜貨花銷等雞毛蒜皮的小事。我聽過一個有關(guān)吸煙的廣告。
I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life:
我記不得細(xì)節(jié)了，但是廣告大意是說，每吸一口香煙會減少幾分鐘的壽命，
I think it might have been two minutes per puff.
大概是兩分鐘。
At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days,
無論如何，我決定為祖母做個算術(shù)。我估測了祖母每天要吸幾支香煙，
estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on.
每支香煙要吸幾口等等，
When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car,
然后心滿意足地得出了一個合理的數(shù)字。接著，我捅了捅坐在前面祖母的座位，
tapped my grandmother on the shoulder,and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”
又拍了拍她的肩膀，然后驕傲地宣稱，“每天吸兩分鐘的煙，你就少活九年!”
I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected.
我清晰地記得接下來發(fā)生了什么，而那是我意料之外的。
I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff, you’re so smart.
我本期待著小聰明和算術(shù)技巧能贏得掌聲，“哦孩子，你太聰明了。
You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.”
你通過了分鐘的數(shù)據(jù)去計算了一年的總變化量。”
That’s not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears.
但那并沒有發(fā)生。相反，我的祖母哭泣起來。
I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying,
我坐在那里看著祖母哭泣不知所措。
my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway.
我的祖父之前一直在默默開車，把車停在了路邊，
He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow.
走下車來，打開了我的車門，等著我跟他下車。
Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man.
我惹麻煩了嗎？我的祖父是一個智慧而安靜的人。
He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time?
他從來沒有對我說過嚴(yán)厲的話，難道這會是第一次？
Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother.
還是他會讓我回到車上跟祖母道歉？
I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be.
我以前從未遇到過這種狀況，因而也無從知曉會有什么后果發(fā)生。
We stopped beside the trailer.My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said,
我們在房車旁停下來。祖父注視著我，沉默片刻，然后輕輕地、平靜地說：
“Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”
“杰夫，有一天你會明白，善良比聰明更難。”
What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices.
今天我想對你們說的是，天賦和選擇不同。聰明是一種天賦，而善良是一種選擇。
Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they’re given after all. Choices can be hard.
天賦得來很容易——畢竟它們與生俱來。而選擇則頗為不易。
You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
如果一不小心，你可能被天賦所誘惑，這可能會損害到你做出的選擇。
This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain.
在座各位都擁有許多天賦。我確信你們的天賦之一就是擁有精明能干的頭腦。
I’m confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever,
之所以如此確信，是因?yàn)槿雽W(xué)競爭十分激烈，如果你們不能表現(xiàn)出聰明智慧，
the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.
便沒有資格進(jìn)入這所學(xué)校。
Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels.
你們的聰明才智必定會派上用場，因?yàn)槟銈儗⒃谝黄錆M奇跡的土地上行進(jìn)。
We humans -- plodding as we are -- will astonish ourselves. We’ll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it.
我們?nèi)祟?，盡管跬步前行，卻終將令自己大吃一驚。我們能夠想方設(shè)法制造清潔能源，
Atom by atom, we’ll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs.
也能夠一個原子一個原子地組裝微型機(jī)械，使之穿過細(xì)胞壁，然后修復(fù)細(xì)胞。
This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we’ve synthesized life.
這個月，有一個異常而不可避免的事情發(fā)生了——人類終于合成了生命。
In the coming years, we’ll not only synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to specifications.
在未來幾年，我們不僅會合成生命，還會按說明書驅(qū)動它們。
I believe you’ll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton --
我相信你們甚至?xí)吹轿覀兝斫馊祟惖拇竽X，儒勒·凡爾納，馬克·吐溫，伽利略，牛頓——
all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization,
所有那些充滿好奇之心的人都希望能夠活到現(xiàn)在。作為文明人，
we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.
我們會擁有如此之多的天賦，就像是坐在我面前的你們，每一個生命個體都擁有許多獨(dú)特的天賦。
How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?
你們要如何運(yùn)用這些天賦呢？你們會為自己的天賦感到驕傲，還是會為自己的選擇感到驕傲?
I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year.
16年前，我萌生了創(chuàng)辦亞馬遜的想法。彼時我面對的現(xiàn)實(shí)是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)使用量以每年2300%的速度增長，
I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles --
我從未看到或聽說過任何增長如此快速的東西。創(chuàng)建涵蓋幾百萬種書籍的網(wǎng)上書店的想法令我興奮異常，
something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world -- was very exciting to me.
因?yàn)檫@個東西在物理世界里根本無法存在。
I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year.
那時我剛剛30歲，結(jié)婚才一年。
I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing
我告訴妻子MacKenzie想辭去工作，然后去做這件瘋狂的事情，很可能會失敗，
that probably wouldn’t work since most startups don’t,and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that.
因?yàn)榇蟛糠謩?chuàng)業(yè)公司都是如此，而且我不確定那之后會發(fā)生什么。
MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it.
MacKenzie告訴我，我應(yīng)該放手一搏。
As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires,
在我還是一個男孩兒的時候，我是車庫發(fā)明家。我曾用水泥填充的輪胎、
a solar cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings.
雨傘和錫箔以及報警器制作了一個自動關(guān)門器。
I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.
我一直想做一個發(fā)明家，MacKenzie支持我追隨內(nèi)心的熱情。
I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired.
我當(dāng)時在紐約一家金融公司工作，同事是一群非常聰明的人，我的老板也很有智慧，我很羨慕他。
I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park,
我告訴我的老板我想開辦一家在網(wǎng)上賣書的公司。他帶我在中央公園漫步良久，
listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea,
認(rèn)真地聽我講完，最后說：“聽起來真是一個很好的主意，
but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.”
但是對那些目前沒有謀到一份好工作的人來說，這個主意會更好。”
That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision.
這一邏輯對我而言頗有道理，他說服我在最終作出決定之前再考慮48小時。
Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately,
那樣想來，那樣想來，這個決定確實(shí)很艱難，但是最終，
I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing.
我決定拼一次。我認(rèn)為自己不會為嘗試過后的失敗而遺憾，
And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration,
倒是有所決定但完全不付諸行動會一直煎熬著我。在深思熟慮之后，
I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice.
我選擇了那條不安全的道路，去追隨我內(nèi)心的熱情。我為那個決定感到驕傲。
Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life -- the life you author from scratch on your own -- begins.
明天，非常現(xiàn)實(shí)地說，你們從零塑造自己人生的時代即將開啟。
How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?
你們會如何運(yùn)用自己的天賦？你們又會作出怎樣的抉擇？
Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?
你們是被慣性所引導(dǎo)，還是追隨自己內(nèi)心的熱情？
Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?
你們會墨守陳規(guī)，還是勇于創(chuàng)新？
Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?
你們會選擇安逸的生活，還是選擇一個奉獻(xiàn)與冒險的人生？
Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?
你們會屈從于批評，還是會堅守信念?
Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?
你們會掩飾錯誤，還是會坦誠道歉？
Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?
你們會因害怕拒絕而掩飾內(nèi)心，還是會在面對愛情時勇往直前？
Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?
你們想要波瀾不驚，還是想要搏擊風(fēng)浪？
When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?
你們會在嚴(yán)峻的現(xiàn)實(shí)之下選擇放棄，還是會義無反顧地前行？
Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?
你們要做憤世嫉俗者，還是踏實(shí)的建設(shè)者？
Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?
你們要不計一切代價地展示聰明，還是選擇善良？
I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old,
我要做一個預(yù)測：在你們80歲時某個追憶往昔的時刻，
and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story,
只有你一個人靜靜對內(nèi)心訴說著你的人生故事，
the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made.
其中最為充實(shí)、最有意義的那段講述，會被你們作出的一系列決定所填滿。
In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!
最后，是選擇塑造了我們的人生。為你自己塑造一個偉大的人生故事。謝謝，祝你們好運(yùn)！
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