Two Truths to Live by人生的兩條真理

By Alexander M. Schindler

The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is 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.

生活的藝術是要懂得何時緊緊抓住，何時學會放棄。因為人生就是一對矛盾，它促使我們牢牢抓住人生的很多賜予，但同時又注定了我們對這些給予最終的放棄。老一輩猶太學者是這樣說的：人來到這個世界的時候拳頭是緊握的，而當離開的時候，手卻是松開的。

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，我們應該僅僅抓住生活，因為生活是神奇的，是充滿著美的——上帝創造的大地的每一個空間都充斥著至美。我們都知道這點，但我們卻常常在回首往事之時才明白這個道理，然后突然意識到逝去的時光已經一去不復返了。

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.

我們追憶逝去的美麗，殘缺的愛情，但是更令人痛心的回憶是當繁花盛開之時錯過了欣賞它的美麗;當愛情眷顧之時卻未能做出回應。

This 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, ill, be ours.

學會(珍愛美好的事物)是不容易做到的。尤其是我們年輕時，認為世界是由我們掌握的，只要我們自己滿腔熱情，全力以赴的去追求，我們想要的東西就能夠——不，是一定能夠得到。

But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surely this second truth dawns upon us. At every stage of life we sustain losses—and grow in the process.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.

隨著我們的成長，生活使我們不得不面對現實，而第二種真理逐漸被我們所感知，所理解。 在人生的每一個階段，我們都要承受損失，在這個過程中我們慢慢的長大. 最終，正如松手和握拳的比喻那樣：我們自己也得走向不可抗拒的死亡，失去了原有的自我，失去了以往的或夢想過的一切。

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.

我們在閱歷中所積累起來的洞察力就像我們的經歷本身一樣的平凡生活的賜予是可貴的，可是我們卻常常忽視了它們的存在。