Two Truths to Live By
02:47來自傑瑞米英語
Two Truths to Live By
兩條生活的真理
Alexander M. Schindler
The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbis of old put it this way: 「A man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open.」
生活的藝術就是知道何時堅持不放與何時鬆手放棄。因為生活是一條悖論：它甚至指示我們牢牢抓住許多到頭來註定要放棄的東西。古代的猶太學者們這樣表達生活：人緊握著拳頭來到這個世界上，可是鬆開手辭世而去。
Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God’s own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.
我們確實應該抓緊生活，因為生活很奇妙，上帝創造的這個世界每個小孔都充滿了美。我們知道生活確實如此，可是往往回首往事時才意識到這個道理，並突然醒悟美好的往事已不再。
We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.
我們記得褪色了的美，消逝了的愛。可是我們更痛苦地記得當美綻放時我們卻沒有看到，也沒有以愛回報我們得到的愛。
A recent experience re-taught me this truth. I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack and had been in intensive care for several days. It was not a pleasant place.
最近的一次經歷讓我再次明白這個道理。心臟病嚴重發作後我被送到醫院，被精心護理了幾天。醫院是一個令人心情不愉快的地方。
One morning, I had to have some additional tests. The required machines were located in a building at the opposite end of the hospital, so I had to be wheeled across the courtyard on a gurney.
一天早上，我得做些附加檢查，做檢查的機器在醫院盡頭對面的一棟樓裡，因此我不得不躺到帶輪子的小床上被推著穿過醫院庭院。
As we emerged from our unit, the sunlight hit me. That’s all there was to my experience. Just the light of the sun. and yet how beautiful it was — how warming, how sparkling, how brilliant!
當我們從我的住院單元出來時，陽光照到了我身上。我的體驗就全來自那裡。只是陽光。然而它多麼美麗——多麼溫暖，多麼生氣勃勃，多麼燦爛啊！
I looked to see whether anyone else relished the sun’s golden glow, but everyone was hurrying to and fro, most with eyes fixed on the ground. Then I remembered how often I, too, had been indifferent to the grandeur of each day, too preoccupied with petty and sometimes even mean concerns to respond to the splendor of it all.
我看看是否還有其他人也欣賞這金色的陽光，可是每個人都來去匆匆，多數人的目光盯在地面上。於是記起我多麼經常，也，漠視了這每天的壯觀，也專注在各種瑣事上，有時甚至是些卑劣的事情上來回應陽光的壯麗。
The insight gleaned from that experience is really as commonplace as was the experience itself: life’s gifts are precious—but we are too heedless of them.
對那次經歷的洞悉就跟經曆本身一樣平凡無奇。生活贈予我們的禮物是珍貴的——可是我們對此太不以為意了。
Here then is the first pole of life’s paradoxical demands on us: Never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.
因而這就是生活悖論的第一個極點：不要過於忙碌而忽略了生活的奇妙，不敬畏生活。要虔誠地迎接每個黎明的到來，要抓住每個小時，不浪費珍貴的每一分鐘。
Hold fast to life … but not so fast that you cannot let go. This is the second side of life’s coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.
抓緊生活……可是不要太緊而不能鬆手放棄。這是生活硬幣的第二面，生活悖論的對立面：必須接受失敗，並且學會如何放棄。