-
We are What We Choose
选择比天赋更重要
Remarks by Jeff Bezos, as delivered to
the Class of 2010
Baccalaureate
(
贝索斯在普林斯顿大学
2010
年学士毕业典礼上的演讲
)
May 30, 2010
(2010
年
5
月
30
日
)
As
a
kid,
I
spent
my
summers
with
my
grandparents
on
their
ranch
in
Texas.
I
helped
fix
windmills,
vaccinate cattle,
and do
other chores. We also watched soap operas every
afternoon,
especially
of
our
Lives.
My
grandparents
belonged
to
a
Caravan
Club,
a
group
of
Airstream trailer owners
who travel together around the U.S. and Canada.
And every few summers,
we'd join the
caravan. We'd hitch up the Airstream trailer to my
grandfather's car, and off we'd go,
in
a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers.
在我还是一个孩子的时候，
我的夏天
总是在德州祖父母的农场中度过。
我帮忙修理风车，
为
牛接种疫苗，也做其它家务。每天下午，我们都会看肥皂剧，尤其是《我们的岁月》
。我的
祖父母参加了一个房车俱乐部，那是一群驾驶
Airstream
拖挂型房车的人们，他们结伴遍游
美国和加
拿大。
每隔几个夏天，
我也会加入他们。
我们把房车挂在祖父的小汽车后面，
然后
加入
300
余名
Airstream
探险者们组成的浩荡队伍。
I
loved
and
worshipped
my
grandparents
and
I
really
looked
forward
to
these
trips.
On
one
particular trip, I was about 10 years
old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in
the back of
the car. My grandfather was
driving. And my grandmother had the passenger
seat. She smoked
throughout these
trips, and I hated the smell.
我爱我的祖父母，我
崇敬他们，
也真心期盼这些旅程。那是一次我大概十岁时的旅行，
我照
例坐在后座的长椅上，祖父开着车，祖母坐在他旁边，吸着烟。我讨厌烟味。
At
that age, I'd take any excuse to make estimates
and do minor arithmetic. I'd calculate our gas
mileage
--
figure
out
useless
statistics
on
things
like
grocery
spending.
I'd
been
hearing
an
ad
campaign
about smoking. 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: I think it might have been two
minutes
per
puff. At
any
rate,
I
decided
to
do
the
math
for
my
grandmother.
I
estimated
the
number
of
cigarettes per days, estimated the
number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I
was satisfied
that I'd come up with a
reasonable number, I poked my head into the front
of the car, tapped my
grandmother on
the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed,
years off your life!
在那样的年纪，<
/p>
我会找任何借口做些估测或者小算术。
我会计算油耗还有杂货花销
等鸡毛蒜
皮的小事。
我听过一个有关吸烟的广告。
我记不得细节了，但是广告大意是说，每吸一口香
烟会减少几分钟的寿命，<
/p>
大概是两分钟。
无论如何，我决定为祖母做个算术。我估测了祖母
每天要吸几支香烟，
每支香烟要吸几口等等，
< br>然后心满意足地得出了一个合理的数字。
接着，
我捅了捅
坐在前面的祖母的头，
又拍了拍她的肩膀，
然后骄傲地宣称，<
/p>
“每天吸两分钟的烟，
你就少活九年
!<
/p>
”
I
have
a
vivid
memory
of
what
happened,
and
it
was
not
what
I
expected.
I
expected
to
be
applauded for my cleverness and
arithmetic skills.
some tricky
estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a
year and do some division.
not
what
happened.
Instead,
my
grandmother
burst
into
tears.
I
sat
in
the
backseat
and
did
not
know
what
to
do.
While
my
grandmother
sat
crying,
my
grandfather,
who
had
been
driving
in
silence, pulled over onto
the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car
and came around and
opened
my
door
and
waited
for
me
to
follow.
Was
I
in
trouble?
My
grandfather
was
a
highly
intelligent, quiet man. He had never
said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be
the first
time? Or maybe he would ask
that I get back in the car and apologize to my
grandmother. I had no
experience in
this realm with my grandparents and no way to
gauge what the consequences might
be.
We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather
looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he
gently
and calmly said,
我清晰地
记得接下来发生了什么，
而那是我意料之外的。
我本期待着小聪
明和算术技巧能赢
得掌声，但那并没有发生。相反，我的祖母哭泣起来。我的祖父之前一
直在默默开车，把车
停在了路边，走下车来，打开了我的车门，等着我跟他下车。我惹麻
烦了吗
?
我的祖父是一
个智慧而安静的
人。他从来没有对我说过严厉的话，难道这会是第一次
?
还是他
会让我回到
车上跟祖母道歉
?
我以前从
未遇到过这种状况，因而也无从知晓会有什么后果发生。我们在
房车旁停下来。祖父注视
着我，沉默片刻，然后轻轻地、平静地说：
“杰夫，有一天你会明
白，善良比聪明更难。
”
What I want to talk to you
about today is the difference between gifts and
choices. Cleverness is a
gift, kindness
is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after
all. Choices can be hard. 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.
今天我想对你们说的是，
天赋和选择不同。
聪明是一种天赋，
而善良是一种选择。
天赋得来
很容易——毕竟它们与生俱来。而选择则颇为不易。如果一不小心，你可能被天赋所诱惑，
这可能会损害到你做出的选择。
This is a group with many
gifts. I'm sure one of your gifts is the gift of a
smart and capable brain.
I'm confident
that's the case because admission is competitive
and if there weren't some signs that
you're clever, the dean of admission
wouldn't have let you in.
在座各位都拥有许多天赋。<
/p>
我确信你们的天赋之一就是拥有精明能干的头脑。
之所以如此确<
/p>
信，是因为入学竞争十分激烈，如果你们不能表现出聪明智慧，便没有资格进入这所学校。
Your
smarts
will
come
in
handy
because
you
will
travel
in
a
land
of
marvels.
We
humans
--
plodding as we are -- will astonish
ourselves. We'll invent ways to generate clean
energy and a lot