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I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected.
我清晰地记得接下来发生了什么，而那是我意料之外的。
I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills.
我本期待着小聪明和算术技巧能赢得掌声。
"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."
“杰夫，你很聪明，你做了些复杂的估算，计算出一年中有多少分钟，还做了些除法。”
That's not what happened.
但那并没有发生。
Instead, my grandmother burst into tears.
相反，我的祖母哭泣起来。
I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do.
我坐在后座不知道该怎么办。
While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway.
我的祖母坐在那里一直哭，而我的祖父之前在一直在默默开车，这时他把车停在了高速路边，
He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow.
走下车来，打开了我的车门，等着我跟他下车。
Was I in trouble?
我惹麻烦了吗？
My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man.
我的祖父是一个智慧而安静的人。
He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time?
他从来没有对我说过严厉的话，难道这会是第一次?
Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother.
还是他会让我回到车上跟祖母道歉?
I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be.
我以前从未遇到过这种状况，因而也无从知晓会有什么后果发生。
We stopped beside the trailer.
我们在房车旁停下来。
My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence,
祖父注视着我，沉默片刻，
he gently and calmly said, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."
然后轻轻地、平静地说：“杰夫，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.
今天我想对你们说的是，天赋和选择不同。
Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice.
聪明是一种天赋，而善良是一种选择。
Gifts are easy -- they're given after all.
天赋得来很容易——毕竟它们与生俱来。
Choices can be hard.
而选择则颇为不易。
You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful,
如果一不小心，你可能被天赋所诱惑，
and if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
这可能会损害到你做出的选择。
This is a group with many gifts.
在座各位都拥有许多天赋。
I'm sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain.
我确信你们的天赋之一就是拥有精明能干的头脑。
I'm confident that's the case because admission is competitive
之所以如此确信，是因为入学竞争十分激烈，
and if there weren't some signs that you're clever, the dean of admission wouldn't have let you in.
如果你们不能表现出聪明智慧，便没有资格进入这所学校。
Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels.
你们的聪明才智必定会派上用场，因为你们将在一片充满奇迹的土地上行进。
We humans, plodding as we are,will astonish ourselves.
我们人类，尽管跬步前行，却终将令自己大吃一惊。
We'll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it.
我们能够想方设法制造清洁能源，
Atom by atom, we'll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs.
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。
This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we've synthesized life.
这个月，有一个异常而不可避免的事情发生了——人类终于合成了生命。
In the coming years, we'll not only synthesize it, but we'll engineer it to specifications.
在未来几年，我们不仅会合成生命，还会按说明书驱动它们。
I believe you'll even see us understand the human brain.
我相信你们甚至会看到我们理解人类的大脑，
Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton -- all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now.
儒勒·凡尔纳，马克·吐温，伽利略，牛顿——所有那些充满好奇之心的人都希望能够活到现在。
As a civilization,we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.
作为文明人，我们会拥有如此之多的天赋，就像是坐在我面前的你们，每一个生命个体都拥有许多独特的天赋。
