Kind > Clever
Last weekend I bumped across an article about Jeff Bezos’s Baccalaureate Address in Princeton back in 2010. I think there are plenty of things of thing we can learn from his story and thus I decided to share this story.
He started the speech telling the audience about his childhood life, where he used to spend his summer holidays in Texas, on his grandparents ranch, where he helped to take care of cattle and do chores. He also often traveled with his grandparents in a caravan convoy around the United States. Jeff being a polymath/genius was often praised by his grandparents for his being able to solve mathematical problems really fast. One summer when he was roughly 10 years old, as they were on one of their trips, his grandmother who was a smoker (he hated the fact that she smoked) was smoking, when an advertisement on the radio about losing 9 minutes of your life per cigarette smoked. Jeff being the genius he was quickly made an estimation on how many cigarettes his grandmother smoked a day, and proudly exclaimed how much of her life she had lost.
Instead of being applauded for his mathematical brilliance as he expected, his grandmother started bursting into tears. His grandfather then stopped the trailer, got Jeff out and told him a profound truth: “Jeff, one day you will understand, it is harder to be kind then clever.”
In many ways, this is so true, as cleverness or intellect, is a gift, no one chooses to be stupid or daft, the are just are born like that. Intellect is a gift while choosing to be kind is a choice. Gifts are easy, as they are given for FREE after all. Jeff went on to also say that if you seduce yourself with your gifts, they will probably be detrimental to the choices you make in life.
He went on to conclude with two probing questions:
“How will you use the gifts given to you? Will you take pride in your gifts or pride in the choices you make?”
“Will you be clever at the expense of others, or choose to be kind?”
These two questions really struck a chord in me, as I started to recollect all the times I have put being clever in front of being kind to the people around me. Times that I might have hurt others for my own personal gain. It really hurt thinking that I might have actually caused hurt to my cherish loved ones around me. Then I decided that from today onwards, I shall choose: kind > clever.
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That's actually really true @cryptochindian . It takes more effort to be purposefully kind to others especially when one is showered with gifts of brilliant intellectual. The more logical the person is, the less compassionate he / she becomes. This is where even scientifically one said when one side of the brain is to dominant, the other side subsides.
Therefore the best thing is to be balanced embracing and improving both intellectually and compassion of others.
Great insights. upvoted
Yes @littlenewthings, because most of the time you will be ahead of the rest. I often struggle with the balance, as I am more logical, but reading Jeff's speech really opened up my eyes as to how to behave moving forward.
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