The Art of Living
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（拉比,犹太人的学者) of old put it this way:”A man comes to this world with his fist clenched,but when he dies,his hand is open.”
Surely we ought to hold fast to life,for it is wondrous（令人惊奇的）,and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore（细节）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 .
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.
A recent experience re-taught me this truth.I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack and had been in intensive care（重病特别护理）for several days.It was not a pleasant place.
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.
As we emerged form 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 sparking,how brilliant!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 from that experience which is really as commonplace as was the experience itself:life’s gifts are precious but we are too heedless of them.
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.
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.
This is an easy lesson to learn,esp.when we are young and think that the world is ours to command,that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can,nay,will be ours.But then life moves along to confront us with realities,and slowly but surely this truth dawns upon us.
At every stage of life we sustain losses---- and grow in the process.We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter.We enter a progression of schools,then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes.We get married and have children and then have to let them go.We confront the death of our parents and our spouses.We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our strength.And ultimately,as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests,we must confront the inevitability of our own demise,losing ourselves as it were,all that we were or dreamed to be.
1.Paradox:n.悖论,似非而是的观点
2.ordain：v.注定,规定；颁布命令
3.relinquishment:n.作罢,放弃 relinquish v.放弃
4.pore：n.皮肤的毛孔,叶子的气孔；细节
5.gurney：盖尼式床（用于搬运病人）
6.relish：v.enjoy
7.to and fro:来回地；往复地
生活的艺术
生活的艺术在于懂得什么时候追求,什么时候放弃.因为生活就是一个矛盾体：它要我们紧紧抓住它赐予我们的生命之礼,然后最终又让它们从我们手中跑掉.老先生们说：“人们紧握着拳头来到这个世界上,离开这个世界时却摊开了双手.”
当然我们应该紧紧把握生活,因为它美妙得不可思议,充满了从上帝的每个毛孔里蹦出来的美.我们都清楚这一点,但我们常常只有在回首往事时才会想去过去,才会突然意识到过去永远地消逝了,才会承认这个道理.
我们都记得美的褪去,爱的老去.但我们更痛苦地记得美正艳时,我们却没有发现,爱正浓时,我们却没有回应.
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抓住生活,但不要抓得太紧,以至你放不下手.这就是生活像硬币一样也有另一面,也是生活矛盾的另一极：我们必须接受放弃,并且学会怎样让它过去.