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Just ten years ago, I sat across the desk from a doctor with a stethoscope. “Yes, ” he said, “there is a lesion in the left, upper lobe. You have a moderately advanced case…” I listened, stunned, as he continued, “You’ll have to give up work at once and go to bed. Later on, we’ll see.” He gave no assurances.
十年前的一天，我坐在一名手持聽診器的醫生對面。“你的左肺葉上部確實有一處壞損，而且病情正在惡化”——聽到這里，我整個人一下懵了。“你必須停止工作臥床休息，有待觀察。”醫生對我的病情也是不置可否。
Feeling like a man who in mid-career has suddenly been placed under sentence of death with an indefinite reprieve, I left the doctor’s office, walked over to the park, and sat down on a bench, perhaps, as I then told myself, for the last time. I needed to think. In the next three days, I cleared up my affairs; then I went home, got into bed, and set my watch to tick off not the minutes, but the months. 2 years and many dashed hopes later, I left my bed and began the long climb back. It was another year before I made it.
就這樣，事業方面方興未艾的我仿佛突然被人判了死刑，卻說不準何時執刑。我離開醫生的辦公室，來到公園的長椅上坐下。這也許是最后一次來這兒了，我對自己說。我真得好好整理一下思緒。接下來的三天我把手頭的事務全部處理完畢。我回到家，躺到床上，然后把手表從顯示分鐘改為顯示月份。兩年半的時間過去了，在無數次的失望之后，我終于可以離開病床，艱難地向從前的生活狀態回歸。一年之后，我做到了。
I speak of this experience because these years that past so slowly taught me what to value and what to believe. They said to me: Take time, before time takes you. I realize now that this world I’m living in is not my oyster to be opened but my opportunity to be grasped. Each day, to me, is a precious entity. The sun comes up and presents me with 24 brand new, wonderful hours—not to pass, but to fill.
我之所以談起這段經歷，是因為那段度日如年的歲月讓我懂得應該珍惜什么，信仰什么。那段歲月讓我明白一個道理：牢牢抓住時間，而不是讓時間將你套牢。現在我終于明白，我生活著的這個世界不是等待我去打開的一扇牡蠣，而是需要我去抓住的一個機會。每一天我都視若珍寶，每一輪太陽帶給我的嶄新的二十四小時都鮮活而精彩，我絕不可將其虛度。
I’ve learned to appreciate those little, all-important things I never thought I had the time to notice before: the play of light on running water, the music of the wind in my favorite pine tree. I seem now to see and hear and feel with some of the recovered freshness of childhood. How well, for instance, I recall the touch of the springy earth under my feet the day I first stepped upon it after the years in bed. It was almost more than I could bear. It was like regaining one’s citizenship in a world one had nearly lost.
如今，我仿佛重返童年，又覺得自己所見所聞所感的一切都那么新鮮。當我臥床數年后重新將雙腳踏在大地上的那一刻，腳下那久違了的松軟土壤讓我激動得情難自抑，仿佛重新擁有我差一點就失去的世界。
Frequently, I sit back and say to myself, Let me make note of this moment I’m living right now, because in it I’m well, happy, hard at work doing what I like best to do. It won’t always be like this, so while it is I’ll make the most of it—and afterwards, I remember—and be grateful. All this, I owe to that long time spent on the sidelines of life. Wiser people come to this awareness without having to acquire it the hard way. But I wasn’t wise enough. I’m wiser now, a little, and happier.
我現在時常舒舒服服地坐著，提醒自己要記住當下的每分每秒，因為現在的我健康、快樂，能努力做自己最愛做的工作。這一切如此美好，卻終將消逝，在如此美好的生活消逝之前，我一定要倍加珍惜。在它逝去之后，我會記得曾經擁有的美好，并心存感激。這一切改變都得益于我在生命邊緣徘徊的那幾年。智者無需被逼到如此境地也能明白這些道理——可惜我從前太愚鈍。現在的我比從前多了幾分睿智，我也因此更加快樂。
“Look thy last on all things lovely, every hour.” With these words, Walter de la Mare sums up for me my philosophy and my belief. God made this world—in spite of what man now and then tries to do to unmake it—a dwelling place of beauty and wonder, and He filled it with more goodness than most of us suspect. And so I say to myself, Should I not pretty often take time to absorb the beauty and the wonder, to contribute a least a little to the goodness? And should I not then, in my heart, give thanks? Truly, I do. This I believe.
英國詩人沃爾特.德拉.梅爾曾說過：“時刻記住，最后看一眼所有美好的事物！”這句詩正好總結了我的人生哲學與信仰。上帝創造的這個世界——這個人類時常試圖毀滅的世界——是個美麗奇妙的家園。這里充滿了上帝所賜予的美好事物，超過我們大多數人的想象。我于是常常自問，難道自己不應該去細細品味這些美麗與奇跡，盡綿薄之力去創造世間的美好嗎？難道我不應心存感激嗎？我確實應該——這就是我的信仰。
