英語美文名人勵(lì)志故事65:杰夫.貝索斯普林斯頓大學(xué)2010年學(xué)士畢業(yè)典禮上做演講的故事
65. We are What We Choose
65. 選擇塑造人生
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 al1. 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.
今天我想對(duì)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。天賦得來很容易——畢竟它們與生俱來。而選擇則頗為不易。如采一不小心，你可能被天賦所誘惑，這可能會(huì)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. I'm confident that's the case because admission is competitive and if there weren't some signs that you're clever, the clean of admission wouldn't have let you in.
在應(yīng)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。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，使沒有資格進(jìn)入這所學(xué)校。
Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans---plodding as we are---will astonish ourselves. We'll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lor of it. Atom by atom, we'll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we've synthesized life. In the coming years, we'll not only synthesize it, but we'll engineer it to specifications. I believe you'll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton-all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.
你們的聰明才智必定會(huì)派上用場，因?yàn)槟銈儗⒃谝黄錆M奇跡的土地上行進(jìn)。我們?nèi)祟?，盡管政步前行，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，也能夠一個(gè)原子一個(gè)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。這個(gè)月，有一個(gè)異常而不可避免的事情發(fā)生了——人類終于合成了生命。在未來幾年，我們不僅會(huì)合成生命，還會(huì)按說明書驅(qū)動(dòng)它們。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——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，我們會(huì)擁有如此之多的天賦，就像是坐在我面前的你們，每一個(gè)生命個(gè)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?
你們妥如何運(yùn)用這些天賦呢?你們會(huì)為自己的天賦感到驕傲，還是會(huì)為自己的選擇感到驕傲?
