An 87 Year Old College Student Named Rose

"An 87 Year Old College Student Named Rose
The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. 
I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned round to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me
with a smile that lit up her entire being.
She said, “Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?”
I laughed and enthusiastically responded, “Of course you may!” and she gave me a giant squeeze.
“Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?” I asked.
She jokingly replied, “I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids…”
“No seriously,” I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.
“I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!” she told me.
After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake. We became instant friends. Every day for the
next three months, we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this “time machine”
as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.
Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.
At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was
introduced and stepped up to the podium.
As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, “I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell
you what I know.”
As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, “We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop
playing. There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day.
You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.
We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it!There is a huge difference between growing
older and growing up.
If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old.
If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.
Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change.
Have no regrets.
The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those
with regrets.”
She concluded her speech by courageously singing “The Rose.”
She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives.
At the year’s end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago. One week after graduation Rose died
peacefully in her sleep.
Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s
never too late to be all you can possibly be .When you finish reading this, please send this peaceful word of advice to your friends and family, they’ll really enjoy it!
These words have been passed along in loving memory of ROSE.
REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS
OPTIONAL.
We make a Living by what we get, We make a Life by what we give."

Mark Warner Wake Forest Commencement Speech 2006

"This is the spirit which makes America unique. Our insatiable desire to push the boundaries of what we know and what we can do is what propels our science, our scholarship and our economy.I know; it can be scary. I'll often remember ... after college, I went to law school and a year or so after law school, I decided I would become an entrepreneur. So, I took my life savings — $5,000 — invested in a little energy start-up company. I went to work for that company and, in six weeks, in six weeks I helped that company go totally broke.

I then went into real estate. It took me six months to fail at that. So, at the ripe old age of 26 — student loans coming due — was living out of my car — sleeping on the couches of my law school classmates. This was back in 1982. A new friend told me about a new industry starting up called cellular telephones. I'll always remember my law school classmates saying to me, "Warner, you're so crazy. Go get a real job. Nobody's ever going to want a car phone!" They're still practicing law. So, I fell into that industry and ended up co-founding Nextel. 

- Mark Warner Wake Forest Commencement Speech 2006"

Intelligence

Regarding to intelligence,.I would say someone is intelligent if one has three capabilities - collecting "relevant" pieces of information, interpreting them considering involved party's concern/interest and making best decision to meet,  social equilibrium, in other words, at least to draw majority satisfaction.  But among these three capabilities, I would appreciate more about "considering involved party's concern/interest".  (Hmm, this sounds very metaphysical, in short, I appreciate a considerate person.)

We, as a member of society, are surrounded by full of decision making processes - even finding where to hangout, whom to meet, and what to do for fun. As a human being I believe we are natural-born self-ego and lonely even with friends and family. So that one could easily behave and pursue his/her own interest only and try to utilize all the resources as many as possible in order to fulfill his/her desire even including their friends and family members. However, some people are so considerate by putting themselves into other's shoes and suggesting somethings to meet other's satisfaction as well as his/hers. And I believe this attitude could bring more intellectual conversation , even inspire all the involved people and lead to better conclusion when it comes to decision making. This is my understanding of "intelligent people" and I try to be the one and want to win the respect from "intelligent people".