Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder/CEO) gave the commencement speech at Princeton this year on the subject of how your choices (rather than your gifts) make you who you are:
Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard.
When you are 80 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.
(via Kottke)