buoyant adj. 有浮力的,心情愉快的
Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with gentleness,vigor and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those,of course,who would adopt the Epicurean motto of "Eat,drink,and be merry". But most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death. In stories the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune,but almost always his sense of values is changed. He becomes more appreciative of the meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It has often been noted that those who live,or have lived,in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to everything they do. Most of us,however,take life for granted. We know that one day we must die,but usually we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant health,death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go about our petty tasks,hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.
有時我想，把每天都當作生命中的最后一天來邊，也不失為一個極好的生活法則。這種態(tài)度會使人格外重視生命的價值。我們每天都應該以優(yōu)雅的姿態(tài)，充沛的精力，抱著感恩之心來生活。但當時間以無休止的日，月和年在我們面前流逝時，我們卻常常沒有了這種感覺。當然，也有人奉行“吃，喝，享受”的享樂主義信條，但絕大多數人還是會受到即將到來的死亡的懲罰。 在故事中，將死的主人公通常都在最后一刻因突降的幸運而獲救，但他的價值觀通常都會改變，他變得更加理解生命的意義及其永恒的精神價值。我們常常注意到，那些生活在或曾經生活在死亡陰影下的人無論做什么都會感到幸福。 然而，我們中的大多數人都把生命看成是理所當然的。我們知道有一天我們必將面對死亡，但總認為那一天還在遙遠的將來。當我們身強體健之時，死亡簡直不可想象，我們很少考慮到它。日子多得好像沒有盡頭。因此我們一味忙于瑣事，幾乎意識不到我們對待生活的冷漠態(tài)度。