Who says you are better than others?

The following was a short talk I gave at one of the weekly “Tuesdays in the Chapel” services hosted by Bob Randolph, MIT’s Chaplain to the Institute. The prompt for this years talks is “A book or event that changed my life.”

-The first lines of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me…

Our topic is a book that changed your life. The Great Gatsby is not the book that changed my life, though I like it very much. I included the first few lines of Gatsby though because I think they warmed me up for the the thing that would change my life. Continue reading