-
As a kid, I spent my summers with my
grandparents on their ranch
(
牧场
)
in
Texas
(
德克萨斯
)
. I
helped fix windmills
（风车）
,
vaccinate cattle
（给牛接种疫苗）
,
and do
other
chores
（杂务）
.
We
also
watched
soap
operas
（肥皂剧）
every
afternoon,
especially
“
Days of our
Lives.
”
My
grandparents belonged to a Caravan
（乘拖
车度假）
Club, a group of Airstream
trailer
（车屋）
owners who travel
together around
the U.S. and Canada.
And every few summers, we
’
d
join the caravan. We
’
d
hitch
（钩住）
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
（崇敬）
my
grandparents and I really looked
forward to these trips. On one particular
（特别
的）
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.
童年时，
夏天都是在姥爷的德克萨斯牧场里度过
。
我修过风车、
给牛接种疫
苗，做过许
多其它的事情。每天下午我们也看肥皂剧，经常看《我们的日子》
。
我的姥爷外婆参加了一个房车俱乐部。
他们都有自己的房车，
一起在美国和加拿
大旅游。
每隔几个夏天，
< br>我也会参加他们的旅行。
我们把房车挂在姥爷的轿车上，
就这样，
我们跟其它
300
个房车爱好
者出发了。
我非常爱姥爷和外婆，
总是非常
期待和他们一块儿出去旅行。在一次特殊的旅途当中，我依旧坐在后排车座上。
姥爷
在开着车，外婆坐在旅客席上，一直抽着烟，但我很讨厌烟味。
At
that
age,
I
’
d
take
any
excuse
to
make
estimates
（预算）
and
do
minor
arithmetic
（算术）
.
I
’
d
calculate
（计算）
our gas mileage
（每英里汽油消耗量）
—
figure
out useless
statistics
（统计）
on things like
grocery
（食品杂货店）
spending.
I
’
d been
hearing
an ad campaign
（活动）
about
smoking. I can
’
t remember
the details, but
basically the ad said,
every puff of a
cigarette
（香烟）
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
（拨）
my head into
the front of the car,
tapped
（轻拍）
my grandmother on
the shoulder, and proudly
proclaimed
（公告）
,
“At two
minutes
per puff,
you’ve taken nine years off your
life!”
在那个年龄，
我总是找一切机会去进行计算和预测，
我曾经计算过车的油耗
量和一些没多大用处的事情，
像食品杂货店的开销这样的事情。
我曾听到过一个
关于吸烟的广告，
具体的内容记的
不是太清，
但我记的广告基本内容是，
每吸一
< br>口烟将从我们生命中带走几分钟的时间。
我想应该是每口两分钟，
不管怎样，
我
决定为外婆计算一下。
< br>我估算每天抽几根烟，
每根烟需要抽几口等等。
当我确定
已经计算出一个合理的数据时，
我把头伸向汽车的前排，
轻轻拍了一下外婆，
大
声的说：
“以每口两分钟计算的话，你已经抽走了九年的时间了！
”
< br>。
I
have
a
vivid
(
生动的
)
memory
of
what
happened,
and
it
was
not
what
I
expected. I expected to be
applauded
（夸奖）
for my
cleverness and
arithmetic
（算术）
skills.
“
Jeff,
you
’
re
so
smart.
You
had
to
have
made
some
tricky
（狡猾的）
estimates, figure out the number of
minutes in a year and do some division
（
除
法）
.
”
That
’
s not what
happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into
tears
（突
然哭起来）
.
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
（严厉
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
（领域）
with my
grandparents and no way to
gauge
（估计）
what the
consequences
（后果）
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.”
我对此有很深刻的印象，
我期望外婆夸奖我的聪明和算术能力，
我想外婆会
说：
“杰夫，你是如此的聪明，你可以计算出一年有多少分钟并且也能做除法。
”
但结果却不是这样的。
外婆突然哭了出来
，
我坐在车里不知道该怎么办。
姥爷依
旧开着车，默不作声，最后他把车听到了路边，下了车，打开我这边的车门，站
在那里等
我下车。
我心里有点忐忑。
我的姥爷是一个睿智温和的男人，<
/p>
从来没有
责备过我，
但或许这有可能就成
为了第一次，
也有可能让我去给外婆道歉。
我从
来没有经历过，
也不知道会有什么样的后果。
当我们走
到拖车的后面，
姥爷停下
了脚步，看着我，在一阵沉默之后，他
平静而又温柔的对我说：
“杰夫，总有一
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
（诱惑）
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
想告诉你们的是天赋和选择的区别。
聪明是一种天赋，
善良却是
一种
选择。天赋是最容易得到的，因为你一出生就有了，善良却是难得的。你如果你
一不小心，你就会让天赋去驱使自己，它会蒙蔽的你双眼。
T
his
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
（准许进
入）
is
competitive and if there weren’t some signs that
you’re clever, the dean of
admission
wouldn’t have
let you in.
这里
说的天赋有很多种，
我相信敏捷的思维和活跃的大脑就是你们的天赋之
< br>一。
我确信这一点，
是因为来这所大学的学生是经过残酷
竞争的，
如果你们没有
这些特征的话，学校也不愿意招收你们的
。
Your smarts will come in
handy
（便利的）
because you will
travel in a land of
marvels
（奇迹）
. We
humans
—
plodding
（单调乏味的）
as we are
—
will astonish
（使
惊讶）
ourselves.
We
’ll invent ways to
generate
（产生）
clean energy and
a lot of it.
Atom by atom, we’ll
assemble
（集合）
tiny machines
that will enter cell walls and
make
repairs. This month comes the
extraordinary
（非凡的）
but also i
nevitable
（必
然的）
new
s that we’ve
synthesized
（合成的）
life. In
the coming years, we’ll not only
synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to
specifications
（规格）
. 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
（文化）
, we will
have so many gifts, just as you as
individuals
（个人）