我们记得褪色了的美，消逝了的爱。可是我们更痛苦地记得当美绽放时我们却没有看到，也没有以爱回报我们得到的爱。

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.

最近的一次经历让我再次明白这个道理。心脏病严重发作后我被送到医院，被精心护理了几天。医院是一个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，我得做些附加检查，做检查的机器在医院尽头对面的一栋楼里，因此我不得不躺到带轮子的小床上被推着穿过医院庭院。

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!

当我们从我的住院单元出来时，阳光照到了我身上。我的体验就全来自那里。只是阳光。然而它多么美丽——多么温暖，多么生气勃勃，多么灿烂啊！

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.

我看看是否还有其他人也欣赏这金色的阳光，可是每个人都来去匆匆，多数人的目光盯在地面上。于是记起我多么经常，也，漠视了这每天的壮观，也专注在各种琐事上，有时甚至是些卑劣的事情上来回应阳光的壮丽。

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.

对那次经历的洞悉就跟经历本身一样平凡无奇。生活赠予我们的礼物是珍贵的——可是我们对此太不以为意了。

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.

因而这就是生活悖论的第一个极点：不要过于忙碌而忽略了生活的奇妙，不敬畏生活。要虔诚地迎接每个黎明的到来，要抓住每个小时，不浪费珍贵的每一分钟。

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.

抓紧生活……可是不要太紧而不能松手放弃。这是生活硬币的第二面，生活悖论的对立面：必须接受失败，并且学会如何放弃。返回搜狐，查看更多