Gratitude

by Oliver Sacks

I am sorry I have wasted (and still waste) so much time;

I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written.

But before beginning this, I wanted to have a little fun: a trip to North Carolina to see the wonderful lemur research center at Duke University.

I had discovered my vocation,

And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life—achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.