We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
Jeff BezosRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the difference between inherent abilities and conscious decisions, emphasizing the value of choices over gifts.
In this quote, Jeff Bezos reflects on the contrast between gifts, which are innate talents or qualities, and choices, which require intentionality and effort. He suggests that while gifts like cleverness come naturally and may offer an easy path, qualities like kindness require active choice and can sometimes pose a greater challenge. The deeper message warns against complacency in relying solely on one's gifts, underscoring the importance of making deliberate choices that shape character and life outcomes.
Themes
GiftsChoicesKindnessClevernessDecision-Making
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a discussion about personal development.
More from Jeff Bezos
All quotes →Work hard, have fun and make history.
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If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve.
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But there's so much kludge, so much terrible stuff, we are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet. That's where we are. We don't get our hair caught in it, but that's the level of primitiveness of where we are. We're in 1908.
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Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.
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When you are eighty 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.
Jeff BezosRead
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