盖茨夫妇斯坦福毕业演讲：乐观不是被动等待世界变美好

    聪明过人、勤奋努力、乐观向上且堪称天之骄子，面对这样一群已然注定会迈向成功的年轻人，你还能想出什么激励之言呢？勉励他们向那些最需要帮助的人学习；敦促他们直面世界的不平等；告诫他们要将移情融入乐观精神之中；以及提醒他们，如果不是备受幸运之神的眷顾，他们也不会站到现在的位置，取得现在这样的成就。

    这就是慈善家比尔•盖茨和梅琳达•盖茨在2014年斯坦福大学（Stanford）的毕业典礼上通过一场深刻的演讲向毕业生们所传递的信息。

    盖茨夫妇的基金会已经成为有史以来最为强大的慈善组织之一。这对夫妇在演讲过程中告诫毕业生们，随着不平等已经成为当今时代所面临的核心问题之一，他们应当去追求以使命为驱动力的生活。两位演讲者的发言都极为鼓舞人心，而梅琳达•盖茨的演讲词甚至更震撼。下面是她对于乐观主义的解读：

    于我而言，乐观并不是被动地指望世界会变得更美好；它是一种坚定的信念，相信我们有能力让世界变得更美好——不管我们目睹过怎样的苦楚，不管情况多么糟糕，我们都要帮助别人，我们不绝望，也不置身事外。

    梅琳达•盖茨在印度亲眼目睹了赤贫、疾病的可怕以及艾滋所造成破坏和偏见，由这些亲身经历引申出去，她又补充说：

    这一切让人心碎。它会改变一个人对于乐观的看法。

    还有一些演讲内容涉及了运气以及运气为什么这么重要：

    比尔工作非常努力，为了成功，他勇于冒险，并为此付出了很多。但除了这些特质外，成功还必须具备另一项关键要素，那就是运气——纯粹、彻头彻尾的运气。

    你什么时候出生？你的父母是谁？你在什么地方成长？没有人能通过后天努力来扭转这些东西。它们是命运赐予给我们的东西。

    撇开运气和特权，再想象一下，如果没有这些东西，我们将处于什么样的境地。经过这样的一番思索之后，当再目睹到那些穷人和病人时，你就会很容易由衷地感叹道：“或许那本来也是我要面对的人生。”

    所以在此我们要向你们呼吁：大家离开斯坦福以后，请带上你们的才华、乐观和同情去改变世界，让无数需要帮助的其他人也乐观起来。

    比尔•盖茨的宿敌史蒂夫•乔布斯曾在2005年的斯坦福大学毕业典礼上留下了一场堪称经典的演讲。和乔布斯的演讲一样，盖茨夫妇的这次演讲也有望列入有史以来最令人难忘的演说名单。他们的演讲内容似乎特别适合于斯坦福这所以前所未有的速度孕育着创新人才和创业家的大学。但并不是所有成功的硅谷企业都生而平等，或者正如投资家彼得•泰尔所哀叹的那样：“我们曾经想要过飞车，结果只得到了140个字符（意指社交媒体——编注）。”举例来说，最近来自斯坦福的精英们创建了像Snapchat和Theranos这样的公司。前者专门开发传送自毁式信息的应用，后者则是一家在医疗领域具有潜在革命性的企业。这两家公司都获得了成功，市值都达到了数十亿美元。但毫无疑问，从盖茨夫妇的演讲中我们可以清楚地认识到，后一种创业方式才是他们期望斯坦福大学的毕业生将来努力的方向。（财富中文网）

    译者：徐黄兆

    How do you inspire a group of unusually smart, hard working, optimistic, and largely privileged youngsters who are already destined for success? Encourage them to learn from those most in need; urge them confront inequity; exhort them channel their optimism with empathy; oh, and remind them that for all their accomplishments, they wouldn’t be where they are without a heavy dose of luck.

    That was the message that philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates delivered to Stanford’s 2014 graduating class in a poignant commencement address.

    At a time when inequality is becoming one of the central issues of our time, the Gateses, whose foundation has become one of the most formidable philanthropic enterprises in history, exhorted graduates to pursue a mission-driven life. While both speakers were inspiring, it was Melinda Gates who delivered the most stirring lines. Here’s she is on channeling optimism:

    Optimism for me isn’t a passive expectation that things will get better; it’s a conviction that we can make things better—that whatever suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don’t lose hope and we don’t look away.

    Drawing from her own experience witnessing abject poverty, heartbreaking disease and the ravages and stigma of AIDS in India, she later added:

    Let your heart break. It will change what you do with your optimism.

    And here’s the bit about luck and why it’s important:

    Bill worked incredibly hard and took risks and made sacrifices for success. But there is another essential ingredient of success, and that ingredient is luck—absolute and total luck.

    When were you born? Who were your parents? Where did you grow up? None of us earned these things. They were given to us.

    When we strip away our luck and privilege and consider where we’d be without them, it becomes easier to see someone who’s poor and sick and say “that could be me.” This is empathy; it tears down barriers and opens up new frontiers for optimism.

    So here is our appeal to you: As you leave Stanford, take your genius and your optimism and your empathy and go change the world in ways that will make millions of others optimistic as well.

    The talk may well join another Stanford commencement address—the classic 2005 speech by Bill Gates’ longtime rival Steve Jobs—in the ranks of the most memorable ever. And it seemed especially apt for Stanford, a university that is minting innovators and entrepreneurs are an unprecedented rate. But not all successful Silicon Valley enterprises are created equal, or as the investor Peter Thiel famously bemoaned, “we wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” Stanford, for example, recently spawned the likes of Snapchat-disappearing messages—and Theranos—a potential revolution in healthcare. Both are successful and both are worth billions. But there’s little doubt as to which one Bill and Melinda Gates think Stanford graduates should join or try to emulate.