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."
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.
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 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 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!
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 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 not an easy lesson to learn, especially 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.
By John·B. Priestley
［参考译文］
生活的艺术
约翰·B. 普里斯特利
生活的妙诀在于懂得何时抓紧，何时放松。因为人生就是个悖论：它让我们抓紧人生的多种恩赐，同时又要我们到头来把这些赐予放弃。老一辈犹太学者是这样说的：“一个人握紧拳头来到这个世界，但离开这世界时却是摊开手掌的。”
毫无疑问，我们应该牢牢抓住生命，因为它奇妙，它有一种在上帝创造的世界里无孔不入、无处不在的美。我们大家都知道这一点，可我们却常常是在回首往事想起它时，才能认识到这一真理。此时我们会突然发觉它已不复存在了。
我们能记起已经凋谢的美，已经消逝的爱。可是，我们更痛苦的回忆是，我们没有在鲜花怒放之际看见那种美，没有在别人以爱对我之时也以爱回报。
最近一次经历又使我领悟到这个真理。一场剧烈的心脏病发作后，我被送进医院，接受几天的精心护理。医院可不是个令人愉快的地方。
一天上午，我得加做另外几项检查。我要用的医疗器械安装在医院另一端的大楼里。所以我只有躺在轮床上由人推着穿过院子才能到达那里。
当我们走出病房时，阳光正照在我身上。就我实际的经历而言，当时也没有什么别的，只不过就是这阳光。而这时的阳光是多么美丽、多么温暖、多么耀眼、多么辉煌！
我打量着别人是否也在欣赏这太阳的金色光芒。可是，人人都来去匆匆，大多数人的目光只盯在地上。这时我想到过去自己又何尝不是对每天的壮观景象视而不见，一头埋在细小的、有时甚至是卑鄙、自私的事务中，而对日常的奇观麻木不仁呢？从这次经历所获得的顿悟确如经历本身一样的平凡。生命的赐予是宝贵的，可惜我们对它们太掉以轻心了。
这就是人生向我们提出的矛盾要求的第一个方面：不要因为太忙就忽视了生活中令人惊奇、令人敬畏的东西。每天黎明开始就要恭谨从事。抓紧每个小时，抓住宝贵的每分钟。
紧紧抓住生活——可不要紧得使你不能松手。这就使生活的另一面——矛盾的另一方：我们必须接受损失，学会放松。
这并不是轻易就学到手的。特别是当我们年轻时，认为世界是由我们掌握的，只要我们自己满腔热情，全力以赴地渴求，不管什么东西就能够——不，一定会——得到，此时，这一道理尤其难学。但是，随着生活的继续前进，我们不断地面临各种现实，慢慢地但也是肯定地使我们明白了第二条真理。
在生活的每个阶段上，我们都要蒙受损失——但也是在这个过程中，我们得到成长。我们只有在脱离母胎、失去它的庇护时，才能开始独立生活。我们要进各级学校，继而告别父母，告别儿时的家。我们要结婚生子，继而送走子女。我们要面对父母、配偶的死亡。我们要面临体力或快或慢的消退。最终，正如松手与握拳的比喻那样，我们自己也得走向不可抗拒的死亡，失去原有的自身，失去我们以往的或梦想过的一切。
［注释］
-paradox [ˈpærədɒks] n. 自相矛盾的话（人、物、事） one exhibiting inexplicable or contradictory aspects
-enjoin [ɪnˈʤɔɪn] v. 嘱咐 to direct or impose with authority and emphasis
-ordain [ɔːˈdeɪn] v. 注定 to prearrange unalterably; predestine
-relinquish [rɪˈlɪŋkwɪʃ] v. 放松，松开 to cease holding physically; release
-rabbi [ˈræbaɪ] n. （犹太人的尊称）先生，老师 A scholar qualified to interpret Jewish law
dawn upon : 使明白
-parable [ˈpærəbl] n. 寓言，比喻 A simple story illustrating a moral or religious lesson
-demise [dɪˈmaɪz] n. 死亡 death