"We are what we choose!"I listened to a wonderful podcast of Amazon founder & Princeton Alum, Jeff Bezos, giving the 2010 Baccalaureate speech at his Alma Mater. He shared a tender childhood story to illustrate a great message.
As a 10 year old boy, Bezos loved doing math; making estimates, calculating gas mileage, anything that involved figures. He also hated the smell of smoke and his grandmother was a cigarette smoker so one day after hearing an ad about every puff taking minutes off your life, Bezos did some calculating for his grandmother. Quite proud of his clever penchant for statistics he tapped his grandmother and exclaimed that at 2 minutes per puff, she had taken 9 years off her life.
At age 10, he thought his grandparents might applaud his ingenuity and math skills. Instead, Jeff's grandmother burst into tears! After some silence his grandfather gently explained to him: "Jeffrey, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."
Addressing the Princeton graduates, Bezos said: "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."
Anyone graduating from Princeton is clearly endowed with plenty of "gifts" and Bezos recognized that he was addressing a bright and capable student body. But, in the end, it is the hard choices and sometimes when we choose kindness over cleverness that we discover the greatest and best potential within us!
When Jeff Bezos started Amazon in 1994 he had a great job working for a financial firm in New York City. After telling his boss about his idea to sell books online his boss noted that it "sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job."
While his boss made sense logically, Bezos made a hard choice, leaving stability for start-up, and we all know...the rest of the story! Amazon has been a huge success (over 20 billion in annual revenue) and Bezos is proud of his choice!
He urged the graduates to think about: "How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?"
Furthermore, "Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?"
Listening to the baccalaureate speech was a great choice! It was a touching talk and a good reminder that while we can't always control which "gifts" we have or which gifts we lack, we have complete control over whether we choose to be kind.
