杰夫·贝索斯普林斯顿大学演讲(中英)

杰夫·贝索斯普林斯顿大学演讲(中英)（精选3篇）

杰夫·贝索斯普林斯顿大学演讲(中英) 篇1

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，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。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！”。

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，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。

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（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

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 inevitable（必然的）news 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）

have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.你们的聪明才智终究会派上用途的，那时，你们正在进行着一次绝妙的旅程，我们人类，单调乏味的人类，最终却让我们自己感到不可思议。我们找到很多方式去发明清洁能源。我们用原子做成很小的机器，用它进入到细胞壁来进行一些修复。这个月我们已经合成了细胞，在来年我们不仅要合成，我们还要给细胞定一些规格。我认为我们甚至可以了解人类的大脑，儒勒·凡尔纳、马克·吐温、伽利略、牛顿——所有这些有思想的人都可以复活。作为一种共识，我们有这么多天赋，你们还有许多个人天赋。

How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?

你怎么用这些天赋呢？你会为你的天赋或者选择自豪么？

I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago.I came across the fact that Web usage（使用）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（创业）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（车库）inventor.I’d invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar（太阳能灶）cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil（锡纸）, baking-pan alarms to entrap（欺骗）my siblings（兄弟姐妹）.I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion（激情）.16年前我有了开亚马逊的想法。我无意中发现这样一个事实：互联网的使用人数以每年2300%的速度进行增长。我从来没有见过或听说过哪种事物增长的这么迅速，然后我有了一个令我激动的想法，那就是建一个可以有数百万图书的网上书店，然而这种书店在物理世界中是不可能存在的。那时我才刚刚三十岁，刚结婚一年。我告诉我的妻子MacKenzie我想辞职去做一件疯狂的事，甚至我自己也不知道做完这件事会有什么样的结果，MacKenzie（也是一个普林斯顿大学的毕业生，就坐在第二排）告诉我，让我放手去做。当我还是个孩子的时候，我已经成为了一个车库发明家。我发明了一个能自动填充水泥的轮胎，一个没有了雨伞和锡纸就不能工作的太阳能炊具和欺骗兄弟用的平底锅报警装置。我一直想成为一个发明者，并且我的妻子让我跟着心走。

I was working at a financial firm（金融企业）in New York City with a bunch（群）of very smart people, and I had a brilliant（杰出的）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（逻辑）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（最终）, I decided I had to give it a shot.I didn’t think I’d regret

trying and failing.And I suspected（怀疑）I would always be haunted（缠住）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.我当时和一群非常聪明的人一起在一家纽约的金融公司工作，我很羡慕我们的老板。我走进老板的办公室，告诉他我想办一家在网上卖书的公司。他带着我去中央公园散步，很认真的听我说，听完后跟我说：“听起来这是一个很好的注意，但对于一个还没有好工作的人来说，这会是一个更好的注意”。这个说法有点打动我，老板让我好好想两天再做决定。从那个角度看，这确实是一个艰难的抉择，但是最终我决定试一试。我想我不会因为尝试和失败而后悔，而会因为没有尝试而懊恼。经过思考，我决定为我的激情而铤而走险，我为我的选择而自豪。

Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.明天，从某种意义上，你自己的人生才刚刚开始。

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

你会怎么运用你的天赋？做出怎么样的选择？

Will inertia（惰性）be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

惰性会成为你的常态，还是跟着激情奔走？

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

你会屈服于命运，还是与天搏斗？

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

你会选择一种安逸的生活，还是选择一个充满冒险而有意义的生活？ Will you wilt（屈服）under criticism, or will you follow your convictions（信仰）? 你会在指责中退缩，还是坚持你的信仰？

Will you bluff（蒙混过关）it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize? 当你犯错时，你会选择蒙混过关，还是去勇敢的面对？

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

面对爱情时，你会因为拒绝而退缩，还是会一往无前？

Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

你们想要波澜不惊，还是想要搏击风浪？

When it’s tough（困难）, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

在困境中，你选择放弃，还是百折不挠？

Will you be a cynic（愤世嫉俗者）, or will you be a builder?

你们要做愤世嫉俗者，还是踏实的建设者？

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

你们要不计一切代价地展示聪明，还是选择善良？

I will hazard（冒险）a prediction（语言）.When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating（叙述）for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact（简洁）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!

我可以负责任的说。当你八十岁的时候，你自己静静的反思自己的一生，你会发现记得都是自己所做的一系列的决定。而这每一一些列的决定最后造就了我们自己。创建一个属于你自己的精彩故事。谢谢并祝你们好运。

杰夫·贝索斯普林斯顿大学演讲(中英) 篇2

国家教育部制订颁发的《大学英语课程教学要求》中明确指出:“大学英语的教学目标是培养学生的英语综合应用能力, 特别是听说能力, 使他们在今后学习、工作和社会交往中能用英语有效地进行交际, 同时增强其自主学习能力, 提高综合文化素养, 以适应我国社会发展和国际交流的需要”。大学英语教学改革以及语言教学研究的深入发展促使大学英语课堂教学方法方式不断改进、丰富, 根据实际教学的需求进行优化综合, 以期达到最佳教学效果。应该在现有基础上通过调查总结发现并解决应用中的实际问题, 完善英语演讲的课堂应用, 使其发挥更大的作用。

一、二语习得中的输出

输出在语言学习中至关重要, 因为人们不得不把词语按照某种顺序排列, 所以产出“会迫使学习者由语义加工转到句法加工” (Swain, 1985) 。大学英语教学由于课时减少, 教学任务重, 课堂教学一贯重视输入, 多采用以教师为主导, 以语言知识为中心, 以阅读为主要学习途径的教学方式。语言输出应该引起足够重视, 这是影响语言交际能力的重要因素, 是一个对学习者提高学习能力, 验证输入功效的重要概念。输出是以学生为中心, 以任务为途径, 以语言功能和技能为目标, 更加有利于能力的培养, 语言知识的应用, 达到沟通和交流的目的。英语演讲作为有效输出, 综合了学生听、说、读、写四大技能, 演讲稿的准备阶段、演讲进行阶段、师生反馈阶段都可以有效引导和协助学生将平时所学知识调用出来, 再加以练习, 就可利用资源产生效益, 完成从语言输入到输出的过程。输出除了可以练习已有知识外, 还可以诱发其他输入, 学习者在语言产出时受到“推动”或“伸拉”, 这是让他们的话语能够被人理解的重要组成部分。在这个过程中, 他们可能对前面的话语做出修改或试着使用以前没用过的形式。

二、英语演讲在大学英语课堂上的应用

1. 演讲题目的选择

学生在课堂上的英语演讲分为两大类, 一类是自己选择话题, 做好准备以后在课堂上演讲, 之后由教师点评并回答师生提问。这一类的演讲中, 学生一般选择自己熟悉的, 在他们知识范围内的, 或与当前社会热点和日常生活紧密相关的话题, 如看过的电影、动漫、书籍, 自己的感悟, 熟悉的产品或者软件, 对当前热点新闻发表评论等等。

另一类是跟课文紧密相关的给定话题演讲, 按照单元教学要求选择话题。教师会在单元学习结束后, 要求学生总结文章内容, 发表自己看法, 或者根据给定的话题发表演讲。这类演讲准备时间较短, 有可能会是即兴演讲, 但是内容熟悉, 而且有很多可以利用的词汇和句型。即兴演讲可以锻炼学生随机应变和快速思考的能力。

2. 课堂应用的步骤

课前10分钟左右的时间作为演讲时间, 学生事先按照教师提供的教学日历表选择自己的演讲日期, 提前做好准备, 鼓励学生充分利用多媒体教室的设备, 演讲过程中可以使用Power Point进行展示, 或者以图片或关键词辅助。演讲结束后, 教师马上给出点评, 一般以鼓励为主。点评后, 其他学生根据演讲的内容提出问题, 并要求演讲者作答;教师也可根据演讲内容提问要求其他学生回答。这种互动促使学生去听、去思考, 锻炼了他们的听力和口语, 培养了他们的思考能力, 也促进了课堂教学其他环节的良性循环。

3. 出现的问题

通过大学英语课堂学生演讲发现学生演讲时语言普遍缺乏思想性、逻辑性、连贯性和地道性, 不能有效组织观点、增强语言的说服力和运用非语言因素增加感染力。最主要的问题在于学生口语表达中的发音、音量、语调、速度、停顿和变化, 这些问题造成了听众理解困难, 且演讲过程中不与听众沟通, 听众关注度不高, 使得语言交际能力训练仍流于表面。另外课堂英语演讲时间不够, 即使在课堂上安排, 也只停留在较浅的语言形式的操练层面上, 学生缺乏一定热情, 造成准备不充分, 缺乏互动, 实际效果不佳。

4. 解决方法

实际教学过程中, 对学生进行一些演讲技巧的指导会使学生受益匪浅。课堂上通过开设英语演讲课程让学生观摩、模仿、锻炼, 使他们了解成功演讲的要素:语言流畅 (Fluent) 、大方自然 (Natural) 、满腔热情 (Enthusiastic) 、充满信心 (Confident) 和直面听众 (Direct) (祁寿华, 2005) , 让学生加强口语练习, 从音标、重音、语音、语调、音量、速度等各方面提高口语表达能力。

英语演讲在很大程度上激发了学生学习英语的热情, 提高了学生的英语口语技能, 培养了学生的综合能力。使教师认识到英语演讲在英语教学中的重要性, 从而认真选题、实施、实践, 针对问题加以改进, 把英语演讲作为课堂教学的一个重要环节加以推广运用, 那么英语演讲就会不断为大学英语教学带来惊喜, 最终受益于师生。

参考文献

[1]Susan Gass、Larry Selinker.第二语言习得[M].北京大学出版社, 2011

[2]秦丽莉.探讨“学生分析”模式在大学英语公共演讲课中的应用[J].吉林省教育学院学报, 2011 (10)

杰夫·贝索斯普林斯顿大学演讲(中英) 篇3

At that age， I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic9）. I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details， but basically the ad said every puff10） 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. 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！”

I have a vivid memory of what happened. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. 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 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. 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？ 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.”

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 of11） your choices.

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.

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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. As a civilization， we will have so many gifts， just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.

How will you use these gifts？ And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices？

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 start-ups don’t， and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie told me I should go for it.

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 shot12）. 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.

Tomorrow， in a very real sense， your life—the life you author from scratch13） on your own—begins.

How will you use your gifts？ What choices will you make？ Will inertia14） be your guide， or will you follow your passions？ Will you follow dogma， or will you be original？ Will you choose a life of ease， or a life of service and adventure？ Will you wilt15） under criticism， or will you follow your convictions？ Will you bluff it out16） 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 safe17）， or will you be a little bit swashbuckling18）？ When it’s tough， will you give up， or will you be relentless？ Will you be a cynic， or will you be a builder？ Will you be clever at the expense of others， or will you be kind？

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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！

小时候，暑假我总会和祖父母一起在他们得州的农场度过。我会帮忙修理风车，给牛接种疫苗，还干些其他杂七杂八的活儿。我的祖父母参加了一个由一群清风房车车主组成的旅行俱乐部，与他们结伴在美国和加拿大到处旅行。每隔几年的夏天，我们就会加入俱乐部的车队去旅行。我们把清风房车挂到祖父的小汽车上，之后便出发了。我爱我的祖父母，也很尊敬他们，而且非常期待和他们一起去旅行。其中有一次旅行是在我大概十岁那年。当时我在后座上晃来晃去，祖父开着车，祖母坐在副驾驶座上。祖母一路上都在抽烟，我很讨厌那个味道。

在那个年纪，我会找各种借口做一些估测和简单的算术。我之前总是听到一个有关吸烟的广告。细节我记不清了，但广告的大意是说每抽一口烟就会让生命缩短几分钟：我感觉好像是每口烟会让生命缩短两分钟。无论如何，我决定为祖母算一算。我得出了一个合理的数字，自己觉得很满意，于是把头伸到车的前面，拍了拍祖母的肩膀，自豪地宣称：“按照每吸一口烟会减少两分钟寿命的算法，吸烟已经夺走您九年的生命！”

之后发生的事至今仍历历在目。我本以为他们会为我的聪明和算术技巧而鼓掌，但我预料的情形没有发生。相反，我的祖母突然大哭起来。我坐在后座上，不知所措。祖母坐在那儿哭的当儿，祖父将车停在路肩上。他下了车，走过来将我的车门打开，等我跟他下车。祖父是一个非常睿智又性情温和的人，他从没对我说过一句严厉的话，或许这将会是第一次？我们在房车旁边停了下来，祖父看着我，稍许沉默之后，他温和而平静地对我说：“杰夫，有一天你会明白，做一个善良的人要比做一个聪明的人难。”

今天我想和你们聊的是关于天资和选择之间的差异。聪明是天资，善良却是选择。天资来得很容易——它毕竟与生俱来。而选择却很难，如果不小心，天资会诱使你们误入歧途，如果那样的话，它就可能会危害到你们的选择。

你们都是天资出众的人。我敢肯定，你们的天资之一就是拥有聪明能干的头脑。我坚信这一点，因为入学竞争很激烈，如果没有什么证据表明你们很聪明，招生主任也不会让你们进入这个学校。

你们的聪明将来会派上用场，因为你们将在一片充满神奇的土地上行进。尽管我们人类一直在艰难前行，但我们会让自己都感到吃惊。我们会发明很多产生清洁能源的方法。我们会一个原子一个原子地组装微型机器，使之进入细胞壁做修补工作。作为文明社会，我们将会拥有很多天资，就像此刻坐到我前面的你们作为个体拥有如此多的独特天资一样。

你们将如何利用这些天资呢？你们会因自己的天资而骄傲，还是因自己的选择而骄傲呢？

16年前，我萌生了创办亚马逊的想法。当时我无意中发现，网络应用以每年2300%的速度在增长。我还从来没有见过或听说过有什么东西的增长速度如此之快。于是，我想创办一家可以售卖几百万种图书的网上书店，这在实体世界是不可能的——这个想法让我兴奋不已。那时我刚30岁，结婚才一年。我对妻子麦肯齐说，我想辞职去做这件疯狂的事。这事不一定能成功，因为大多数初创公司都没成功，而且我不确定在那之后会怎样。麦肯齐告诉我说我应该放手一搏。

我当时在纽约的一家金融公司上班，与一群非常聪明的人共事，老板是个我很钦佩的优秀人士。我找到老板，告诉他我要在网上开一家卖书的公司。他带我在中央公园长时间地散步，认真地听我讲述，最后说：“这听起来确实是个不错的想法，但对于一个还未拥有一份好工作的人来说，这个主意会更好。”他那番逻辑在我听来有些道理。他劝我先考虑48个小时，之后再作最后决定。从那个角度看来，当时真是很难抉择。但最终我还是决定试一试。我想自己不会因为尝试和失败而后悔。我倒是觉得我可能会一直为自己作了一个根本不去尝试的决定而苦恼。再三考虑之后，我追随自己的激情，选择了一条不那么安全的道路。现在我为这个选择感到骄傲。

明天，我说的是真正意义上的明天，你们的生活——由你们自己从头书写的生活——即将开始。

你们将如何利用自己的天资？你们将作出怎样的抉择？你们会被惯性引导，还是会追随自己的激情？你们会墨守成规，还是会创意不断？你们会选择安逸的生活方式，还是会选择服务他人、充满冒险的人生？你们会因批评而畏缩不前，还是会坚守自己的信念？做错事时，你们会抵赖，还是会道歉？你们会因害怕被拒绝而封闭自己的内心，还是一旦陷入爱河便付诸行动？你们想要谨慎安稳，还是想来点冒险？当遇到困难时，你们会放弃，还是会不屈不挠？你们会成为愤世嫉俗者，还是会成为建设者？你们会以牺牲他人为代价展示自己的聪明，还是会做一个善良的人？

我大胆预言一下。等你们80岁时，在某个静静沉思的时刻，你们仅对自己诉说着最个人化版本的人生故事，其中最充实、最有意义的告白将是你所作出的一系列选择。最终，是选择造就了我们。为你们自己书写一个精彩的人生故事吧。谢谢，祝你们好运！

1.ranch [rɑ?nt?] n. 大农场

2.windmill [?w?n（d）?m?l] n. 风车

3.vaccinate [?v?ks?ne?t] vt. 给……接种牛痘（或疫苗）

4.caravan [?k?r?v?n] n. 旅行队

5.Airstream：清风房车，美国著名的拖挂式房车品牌，以其经典优美的外部造型和舒适豪华的内部装备而备受美国人的喜爱。

6.trailer [?tre?l?（r）] n. 〈美〉（用汽车拖行的）活动房屋（或工作室）

7.hitch up：把……套上车

8.bench seat：（横置汽车车厢的）统座，长椅座位

9.arithmetic [??r?θm?t?k] n. 算术，演算技巧

10.puff [p?f] n. （抽）一口烟

11.to the detriment of：有损于……；对……不利

12.give it a shot：尝试做某事

13.from scratch：〈口〉从零开始

14.inertia [??n??（r）??] n. 惯性

15.wilt [w?lt] vi. 畏缩

16.bluff it out：蒙混过关

17.play it safe：〈口〉稳扎稳打，谨慎行事，不冒险

18.swashbuckling [?sw???b?k（?）l??] adj. 充满刺激与冒险的