Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, 'Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever.' I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway.

I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears.

You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.' That's not what happened.

I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. When I was satisfied that I'd come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, 'At two minutes per puff, you've taken nine years off your life!' I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I can't remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I'd calculate our gas mileage - figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. It often indicates a user profile.Īt that age, I'd take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.

We are who we choose to be