Gratitude

by Oliver Sacks

Eighty! I can hardly believe it. I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over.

It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.

feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work, and my friends.

This is not indifference but detachment—I still care deeply about the Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality, but these are no longer my business; they belong to the future.

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.