新概念一生必读的英语经典美文第34篇：生活的艺术

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[00:00.29]34. The art of living生活的艺术
[00:08.98]The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. 生活的艺术在于懂得什么时候追求，什么时候放弃。
[00:17.14]For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. 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。
[00:28.20]The rabbis of old put it this way: "A man comes into this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open."  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。”
[00:40.85]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. 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。
[00:51.90]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.  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。
[01:04.80]We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. 我们都记得美的褪去，爱的老去。
[01:10.98]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.  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。
[01:23.86]A recent experience re-taught me this truth. I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack that had been in intensive care for several days. 最近自己的一个经历又令我悟出了这其中的道理。我因为严重的心脏病发作而住进了加护病房。
[01:36.53]It was not a pleasant place.	那地方可不是好呆的。
[01:39.31]One morning, I had to have some additional tests. 一天上午时分，我要接受几项辅助检查。
[01:44.44]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.	因为检查的器械在医院对面的一幢建筑中，所以我就要穿过庭院，躺在轮床上被推到那里。
[01:54.88]As we emerged from our unit, the sunlight hit me. 就在从病房出来的一瞬，迎面的阳光一下子洒在我的身上。
[01:59.75]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!	我所感受的就只有这阳光，它是如此美丽，如此温暖，如此璀璨和辉煌！
[02:10.82]I looken 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. 我看看周围是否有人也沉醉在这金色的阳光中，而事实是大家都来去匆匆，大都目不斜视，双眼只顾盯着地面。
[02:23.32]Then I remembered how often I, too, had been indifferent to the grandeur of each day, 继而我就想到我平常也太过于沉湎于日常的琐碎俗物中，
[02:30.87]too preoccupied with petty and sometimes even mean concerns to respond. 而对身边的美景漠然甚至视而不见。
[02:37.63]From that experience is really as commonplace as was the experience itself: 从这次的经历中我所洞悉的实际就像这个经历本身一样并无什么奇特之处：
[02:43.80]life's gifts are precious-but we are too heedless of them.	生活的恩赐是珍贵的――只有我们对此留心甚少。
[02:48.97]Here then is the first pile of life's paradoxical demands on us: 那么人生给予我们的第一个矛盾的真理就是：
[02:54.61]Never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. 不要太过于忙碌而错过了人生的美好和庄严。虔诚地迎接每个黎明的到来。
[03:03.20]Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.	把握每个小时，抓住宝贵的每分每秒。
[03:06.91]Hold fast to life... but not so fast that you cannot let go. 紧紧地把握人生，但是又不能抓得过死，松不开手。
[03:12.72]This is the second side of life's coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: 这正是人生的另外一面，也就是矛盾的另外一面：
[03:19.14]we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.	我们要接受失去的一切，懂得如何放手。
[03:24.51]This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that world is ours to command, 这个其实并不是容易做到的，尤其当我们尚年轻时，自以为世界在我们的掌控之中，
[03:34.23]that whatever we desire with the full force of or passionate being can, nay, will, be ours. 而不论什么，只要是心想就会事成，而且一定能事成！
[03:43.38]But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surly this truth dawns upon us.	但是现实往往事与愿违，然后渐渐地这条真理必然显现在我们面前。
[03:53.62]At every stage of life we sustain losses- and grow in the process. 在人生的每个阶段我们都会承受失去――也因而成长起来。
[03:59.75]We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter. 当我们出生时失去母体的保护，从那一刻我们开始了独立的生命。
[04:07.81]We enter a progression of schools, then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. 而后我们上学了，一级一级地升上去，离开了父母和儿时的家庭。
[04:14.97]We get married and have children and then have to let them go. 我们结婚生子然后又只能看着他们离去。
[04:19.56]We confront the death of our parents and our spouses. 随着父母和配偶的相继离世，
[04:24.46]We face the gradual or not gradual waning of our own strength. 我们也要面临自己逐渐或者突然的衰老。
[04:29.23]And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, 而最终，就像握手和松手的比喻那样，我们必须面对自己不可避免的死亡。
[04:39.32]losing ourselves, as it were, all that we were or dreamed to be.	就这样我们失去了一切，其中包括我们自己人生已经所有的以及尚未实现的。

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新概念一生必读的英语经典美文第34篇：生活的艺术