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.”

生活的藝術在于懂得什么時候追求，什么時候放棄。因為生活就是一個矛盾體：它要我們緊緊抓住它賜予我們的生命之禮，然后最終又讓它們從我們手中跑掉。老先生們說：“人們緊握著拳頭來到這個世界上，離開這個世界時卻攤開了雙手。”

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 it was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.

當然我們應該緊緊把握生活，因為它美妙得不可思議，充滿了從上帝的每個毛孔里蹦出來的美。我們都清楚這一點，但我們常常只有在回首往事時才會想去過去，才會突然意識到過去永遠地消逝了，才會承認這個道理。

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.

我們都記得美的褪去，愛的老去。但我們更痛苦地記得美正艷時，我們卻沒有發現，愛正濃時，我們卻沒有回應。

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.

這就是生活對我們自己自相矛盾要求的第一步：永遠不要因為忙碌而忽略了它的奇妙和莊嚴。對即將到來的每一天，我們都要心懷敬意，擁抱每一小時，抓住每一分鐘。

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.

抓住生活，但不要抓得太緊，以至你放不下手。這就是生活像硬幣一樣也有另一面，也是生活矛盾的另一極：我們必須接受放棄，并且學會怎樣讓它過去。

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.

學會這些并非易事。特別是年少輕狂的時候，我們自認為是世界的主宰者，認為只要充滿激情地全力追求，就可以得到一切。然而，事實并非如此。只有在面對種種現實時，我們才會漸漸明白這個道理。

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.

在人生的各個階段，我們都會蒙受損失——并且在這一過程中成長。只有在脫離母體失去庇護所時，我們才會開始獨立地生活。我們不斷地升學，接著又離開父母，離開兒時的故鄉。繼而，我們結婚生子，然后又放手讓自己的子女出去闖蕩。隨著父母和配偶的相繼離世，我們也逐漸或者很快衰老。最終，正如雙手張開與緊握這一寓言所說，我們必須面對自身的死亡，失去原來的自我，失去我們擁有過或者憧憬過的一切。