- 注释版
- 纯净版
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon
2010 Baccalaureate remarks, Princeton University
亚马逊创始人及CEO，Jeff Bezos在演讲《选择即人生》中，先回忆自己小时候跟外祖父母乘大篷车旅行时，笑外祖母抽烟浪费了生命，把外祖母搞哭的经历，引出外祖父的忠告：“孩子，长大后你就会明白，善良比聪明困难太多。”
Jeff解释，因为聪明是天赋，不费力就得到了；而善良却是选择，要禁得住耍小聪明的诱惑，选择意味着放弃，往往都不容易。于是Jeff问，你们的人生，到底是要以自己的天赋还是选择为荣呢？Jeff聊起自己放弃金融业高薪工作，辞职创办亚马逊的选择，这是他的骄傲。
最后也是最精彩的，Jeff向毕业生们提出了他们即将面临的一系列人生选择，希望到80岁回顾一生时，这些选择也成为各位的骄傲，而不是悔恨。毕竟，选择塑造人生。
个人童年经历
[1] As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch (n. 农场) in Texas. I helped fix windmills (n. 风车), vaccinate (v. 接种疫苗) cattle, and do other chores (n. 家庭杂务，讨厌或累人的工作). We also watched soap operas (肥皂剧) every afternoon, especially "Days of our Lives." My grandparents belonged to a Caravan (n. 大篷车，（可供居住的）拖车；vi. 乘拖车度假) Club, a group of Airstream trailer (n. 拖车) owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we'd join the caravan. We'd hitch (n. v. 钩住，急推) up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather's car, and off we'd go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. 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.
在我还是一个孩子的时候，我的夏天总是在德州外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。虽然忙碌，但每天下午一家人都会看肥皂剧，尤其是《我们的岁月》。我的外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，我们都会有这样的旅行。我们把房车挂在外祖父的小汽车后面，加入300多名Airstream探险者们组成的浩荡队伍。我爱外祖父母，我崇敬他们，也真心期盼这些旅程。就在这样的一次旅行中，我差不多十岁大，照例坐在车子后排长椅上。外祖父开着车，外祖母坐在他旁边吸烟，我讨厌烟味。
Hitch n. v. 钩住，急推
· Hitch up 猛拉
· Hitch a ride/ lift (with sb.); hitch a passing car 搭便车
· Get hitched/ Did they hitch then? 结婚 （电影Hitch 《全民情圣》）
· The whole shoe went without a hitch. （非书面语）小问题、故障
[2] At that age, I'd take any excuse to make estimates (找各种借口做某事) and do minor arithmetic (Arithmetic n.算术). I'd calculate our gas mileage (n.英里数) -- 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 (v. 喷出，张开，膨胀；n.泡芙，粉扑). 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 (v. n. 刺，捅，戳) my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed (vt. 宣告，公布，声明，赞扬), "At two minutes per puff, you've taken nine years off your life!"
那时，我会找任何借口做些估算。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公益广告。虽然记不得细节，但大意是，每吸一口香烟会减少几分钟的寿命，大概是两分钟。无论如何，我决定为外祖母做个测算。我估测了外祖母每天要吸几支香烟，每支香烟要吸几口等等，然后心满意足地得出了一个合理的数字。接着，我探头到车子前排，拍了拍外祖母的肩膀，骄傲地说，"抽一口烟少活两分钟，你要少活九年了!"
At any rate 无论如何
Poke v. n. 刺，捅，戳
· Give sb./ sth. a poke 戳某人/某物一下；批评
· Tom took a poke at new marketing plan.
· Be careful with the umbrella or you’ll poke someone in the eye.
· Poke around 闲逛（某处），打探（私事），到处乱翻
· Poke into 打探
[3] I have a vivid (adj. 生动的，鲜明的) memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded (v.赞同(applaud the decision)，喝彩) for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. "Jeff, you're so smart. You had to have made some tricky (adj. 狡猾的，机警的) estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division." That's 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 (adj. 严厉的，粗糙的) 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 (n. vt. 测量，判断（人的情感或意图）) 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, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."
我清晰地记得接下来发生了什么，那是我意料之外的。我本期待着自己的小聪明和算术能赢得掌声。“Jeff你真聪明，换算出了一年有多少分钟，还很机智地做了除法”，可我并没有得到这样的夸奖。相反，我的外祖母哭起来。我坐在后面，不知道该如何是好。外祖父之前一直在默默开车，这时把车停到高速旁。他走下车来，打开了后排车门，等着我跟着他下车。我惹麻烦了吗？外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，难道这会是第一次么？还是他会让我回到车上跟外祖母道歉？我以前从未遇到过这种状况，因而无从考量我闯的祸会是什么后果。我们在房车旁停下来。外祖父注视着我，沉默片刻，然后轻轻地、平静地说："杰夫，总有一天你会明白，善良比聪明要难得多。"
Vivid adj. 生动的，鲜明的
· Vivid imagination
· In vivid detail
Applaud v.赞同（applaud the decision），喝彩
· Applaud sb. for (doing) sth.
· Everyone was clapping and cheering. 日常clap比applaud更常用于表示鼓掌喝彩
Apologize to sb.
Gauge n. vt. 测量，判断（人的情感或意图）
· A gauge of sth. 某事物的标准（尺度）
选择比天赋重要
[4] 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 (n. 损害（物）) of your choices.
今天我想对你们说的是，天赋和选择大不相同。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。而选择就太难了。一不小心，你可能被天赋所诱惑，不利于做出明智的选择。
Detriment n. 损害（物）
To the detriment of 对…不利
[5] 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。我确信你们的天赋之一就是拥有精明能干的头脑。之所以如此确信，是因为普林斯顿的入学竞争这么激烈，如果你们不能表现出聪明智慧，便没有资格进入这所学校。
[6] Your smarts will come in handy (派上用场) because you will travel in a land of marvels (n. 奇迹；v. 惊讶). We humans – plodding (adj. 单调乏味的，沉重缓慢的；v. 沉重地走，辛勤工作) as we are -- will astonish (vt. 使惊讶，后面可直接加sb.) ourselves. We'll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot 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 (adj. 必然的，不可避免的) 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.
你们的聪明才智必定会派上用场，因为我们生活在一个充满奇迹的时代。人类尽管跬步前行，却终将令我们自己大吃一惊。我们能够想方设法制造清洁能源，也能够一个原子、一个原子地组装微型机械，使之穿过细胞壁，然后修复细胞。这个月，有一个超乎寻常而不可避免的事情发生了——人类终于合成了生命。在未来几年，我们不仅会合成生命，还有可能按照说明书驱动它们。我相信你们甚至会在有生之年，看到人类深入理解大脑和智慧。儒勒·凡尔纳，马克·吐温，伽利略，牛顿——所有过往的充满好奇心的智者都希望能够活到现代。我们所处的现代文明拥有如此之多的天赋，就像坐在我面前的你们每个人，都拥有许多独特的天赋一样。
Marvel n. 奇迹；v. 惊讶
· I marveled at sth.
· I marveled that
· He’s an absolute marvel (of …)
第二句话的意思不容易理解，先调整回去正常语序we humans are so plodding that we will astonish ourselves我们人类过得太单调，所以经常会搞些发明创造来让自己吃一惊。注意这段说天赋聪明可以搞发明创造，后面大篇幅将如何推动科技进步、社会发展，这些都是跟后面Jeff在描述自己做出辞职创立亚马逊的人生选择时，其中一个重要理由是自己从小就想做个发明家，暗地呼应的。
倒数第二句不大好理解，我们先找句子主干，去除句子中虚拟语气，还原为all the curious want to be alive，the inevitable表示不可避免的事物，all the curious是总结前面举的几个人名，所有这些历史上的大牛们，from the ages表示各个时代。
Most of all这里修饰right now，句子主干是牛人们都想要生活在我们这个时代，这里补充修饰下，最重要的，是要马上复活。Most of all近似于first and foremost，常常用在句子开头表示强调后面引出内容的是最最重要的，首先。
All the ages of the world 世界的所有时代
Most of all 最重要的，首先，尤其是/ first and foremost
以选择为骄傲/亚马逊创业经历
你会为你的天赋还是选择骄傲呢？描述了自己辞职创业的经历后，Jeff说我选择了追随我的激情走上满是风险的创业路，我为自己的选择骄傲。
[7] How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?
你们要如何运用这些天赋呢?你们会为自己的天赋感到骄傲，还是会为自己的选择感到骄傲?
[8] 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. I'd never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles -- something that simply couldn't exist in the physical world -- was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I'd been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most startups don't, and I wasn't sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I'd been a garage inventor. I'd invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn't work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I'd always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.
16年前，我萌生了创办亚马逊的想法。那时，互联网使用量以每年2300%的速度增长，我从未看到或听说过任何增长如此快速的东西。创建涵盖上百万种书籍的网上商店的想法令我兴奋异常，因为这个东西在物理世界里根本不存在。那时我刚刚30岁，结婚才一年。我告诉妻子MacKenzie想辞职去做这件疯狂的事情，很可能会失败，因为大部分创业公司最终都失败了，而且我也不确定之后会发生什么。MacKenzie（也是普林斯顿毕业生）鼓励我放手一搏。在我还是个男孩儿的时候，我就是个车库里的发明家。我曾用水泥填充的轮胎制作了自动关门器，用雨伞和锡箔做了个不太好用的太阳能厨具，还用哄骗弟妹的烤盘预警。我一直想做一个发明家，MacKenzie支持我追随内心的热情。
[9] 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. 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, listened carefully to me, and finally said, "That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job." That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I'm proud of that choice.
我当时在纽约一家金融公司工作，同事都很聪明。老板更有智慧，我很敬仰他。我告诉老板想开家在网上书店后，他带我在中央公园漫步良久，认真地听我讲完，最后说："听起来真是一个很好的主意，但是对那些目前没有谋到一份好工作的人来说，这个主意会更好。"他说得很有道理，而且给了我48个小时考虑再做出最终决定。这样看来，这个决定确实很艰难，但是最终，我决定拼一次。我认为自己不会为尝试过后的失败而遗憾，但如果根本没有尝试这会令我一直煎熬。在深思熟虑之后，我选择了那条不安全的道路，去追随我内心的热情。我为那个决定感到骄傲。
毕业生要面临的各种选择
[10] Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life -- the life you author from scratch (n. v. 抓，乱写；adj.凑巧的，打草稿的) on your own -- begins.
明天，非常现实地说，轮到你们，从零开始导演自己的人生。
Scratch n. v. 抓，乱写；adj.凑巧的，打草稿的
· (Start) from scratch 从零开始，白手起家
· Up to scratch 达到标准
[11] How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?
Will inertia (n. 惯性，惰性) be your guide, or will you follow your passions?
Will you follow dogma (n. 教条，武断的意见), or will you be original?
Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?
Will you wilt (v. n. 枯萎，衰弱) under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?
Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize?
Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?
Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling (adj. n. 虚张声势，恃强凌弱，神气活现)?
When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless (adj. 无情的，坚定的，不间断的)?
Will you be a cynic (n. 愤世嫉俗者), or will you be a builder?
Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?
你们会如何运用自己的天赋？你们又会作出怎样的抉择？
是懒于惯性，还是追逐激情？
是循规蹈矩，还是勇于创新？
是选择安逸，还是奉献和冒险？
被质疑打垮，还是坚持信念？
是蒙混过关，还是坦诚道歉？
因害怕拒绝而封闭内心，还是面对真爱勇往直前？
是安稳第一，还是打造传奇？
遇到困难，放弃还是坚持？
愤世嫉俗，还是积极建设？
不惜牺牲他人，还是保持善良？
Conviction n. 定罪，确信，坚定的信仰 (about)
· With/ without conviction 肯定/迟疑
· They had no previous convictions. 没有前科
Bluff v. n. 吓唬 adj. 直率的，陡峭的
· Bluff it out 蒙混过关
· Do not brag or bluff.
· The threat was a bluff.
Relentless adj. 无情的，坚定的，不间断的
· Relentless problems
· Relent v. 变温和，减轻，动了恻隐之心（主语通常是人）
Cynic n. 愤世嫉俗者
· Young cynic 愤青
· Cynical adj.
· Cynicism n.
· Critical adj. 挑剔的，评判的，决定性的 critical thinking
Hazard n. 冒险，危险；vt. 赌运气
· The hazard of sth.
· Polluted water sources are a hazard to wildlife.
· I’m only hazarding a guess. 瞎猜
[12] I will hazard (n. 冒险，危险；vt. 赌运气) a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating (v. 叙述) for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact (vt. adj. 紧凑，简洁；n. 合同，契约) and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!
我想大胆做个预测：在你们80岁时追忆往昔，只你一个人静静对自己讲述你的人生故事，其中最为充实、最有意义的那段，正将会是你们作出的一系列决定。是选择塑造了人生。下面，轮到你们去塑造自己的人生了。谢谢，祝你们好运!
第二句的主干是the telling will be the series of choices，而The most compact and meaningful是由that will be引导修饰the telling。注意narrating life story，narrate加ing是修饰reflection的。
In reflection 反思
单词总结
Hitch
Poke
Marvel
Gauge
Plodding
Inevitable
Inertia
Conviction
Relentless
Cynic
短语总结
Take (any/ no) excuse to do sth.
Applaud sb. for (doing) sth.
To the detriment of
Come in handy
It astonish sb. that …
(Start) from scratch
Follow passion/ dogma
Bluff it out
Hazard a prediction
In reflection
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon
2010 Baccalaureate remarks, Princeton University
亚马逊创业人及CEO，Jeff Bezos在演讲《选择塑造人生》中，先回忆自己小时候跟爷爷奶奶乘大篷车旅行时，笑奶奶抽烟浪费了多少年生命，把奶奶搞哭的经历，引出爷爷的忠告：孩子，长大后你就会明白，善良比聪明难太多了。
Jeff解释，因为聪明是天赋，不费力就得到了；而善良却是选择，要禁得住耍小聪明的诱惑，选择往往都不容易的。于是Jeff问，你们的人生，到底是要以自己的天赋还是选择为荣呢？Jeff聊起自己放弃金融业高薪工作，辞职创办亚马逊的选择，这是他的骄傲。
最后也是最精彩的，Jeff向毕业生们提出了他们即将面对的一系列人生选择，希望到80岁回顾一生时，这些选择也成为各位的骄傲，而不是悔恨。毕竟，选择塑造人生。
个人童年经历
[1] 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 "Days 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. 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.
[2] 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, "At two minutes per puff, you've taken nine years off your life!"
[3] 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. "Jeff, you're so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division." That's 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, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."
天赋和选择的区别
[4] 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.
[5] 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.
[6] 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 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.
个人选择/亚马逊创业经历
[7] How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?
[8] 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. I'd never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles -- something that simply couldn't exist in the physical world -- was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I'd been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most startups don't, and I wasn't sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I'd been a garage inventor. I'd invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn't work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I'd always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.
[9] 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. 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, listened carefully to me, and finally said, "That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job." That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I'm proud of that choice.
毕业生要面临的各种选择
[10] Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life -- the life you author from scratch on your own -- begins.
[11] How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?
[12] Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?
[13] Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?
[14] Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?
[15] Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?
[16] Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize?
[17] Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?
[18] Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?
[19] When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?
[20] Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?
[21] Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?
[22] I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!