CHANGE | A POWERFUL 6 LETTER WORD

This post is probably the one I have spent the most thinking about and writing.  So hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did pondering and transcribing it.  And in my typical fashion I am confident what I want to say and what I say will miss a point in my mind. What I want to express is that this journey has forever changed me in more than just a physical way.  I am come out of the other side a better person overall and have a fresh new perspective on life.  

#1 - Sometimes bad things lead to good outcomes, it's all about perspective 
#2 - Just as we are the only ones who can prevent forest fires, we are the only ones who can control our future. 

#3 - Those who came before us figured out this life thing, take their advice it comes from a good place.
#4 - Take time to enjoy life, be in the NOW and don't dwell on the past.  Get off the train at the next stop from time to time.  Then get back on the train. 
#5 - You won't always win, and you won't always loose. Stay in the game!
#6 - Be a better you !

#7 - Put the phone down, visit with someone, have a conversation.  Or at least use the numbers and not the letters on the phone.
#8 - Someone, somewhere has it worse than you.  And in all situations you're still someone, somebody loves. 

This weekend I listened to a friend of mine talk about Change and what that meant in life.  There are over 100 people who read this and I don't know who all they are and I am not sure I know each of you.  But some of you will know of the friend of have referenced and have the same level of love and respect for her as I do.  She and her husband opened my eyes to the concept of who we really are as people.  I still hear them in my mind asking the question "Who are You?"  It's more than just our name or where we are from.  The question is like an onion, many layers.  Go back to the post "Here I Am" and you can learn more about what that question means.  And when we have hours to sit and discuss we can unpack each of those into deeper layers.  

But I want to focus on Change.  If nothing else the last 90 days of my life have focused and revolved around that word.  Just as a potter works with clay, or a blacksmith with iron, or a poet with words, it is all the same.  In school we learn about the Law of Conservation of Mass, which teaches us that Matter cannot be created or destroyed.  It simply just changes from one form to the next.  

I have Changed through this journey and have a greater appreciate for the NOW, for Friendships, Family, and Self Care.  I am a better me as a result.  I have chosen to not let this be a negative experience for me, but just a part of my life's journey.  

The Change I have experienced has been multifactorial and life altering.  I have experienced emotional pain and growth.  I have experienced Physical Change in several forms.  I wont complain about the 12 pounds I have lost, I sure hope someone else picks up that Matter because I am happy to see it leave.  I lost my hair, which will come back in a new style in the near future.  I have changed my overall life expectancy.  But most importantly this journey has change who I am.  I won't unpack it all here, but I do hope to provoke thought for each of you on really thinking about the the question "Who are You?".  

I have kept humor in the front of this journey.  I have always used humor to soften the blow or lighten the load where I could.  I mean Laughter is the best Medicine and if you can't laugh at yourself who can?  Too often I worry that we let life or our environment answer the question for us.  And that is okay if that is what makes you happy, but it is never good if you left your environment dictate who you will become.  Good or bad, right or wrong we are still the only ones who get to decide who and what we will be tomorrow.  We can not be a victim of our situation.  

My friend used the analogy of the game Shoots and Ladders for life and that sometimes we land on a space and are sent back to the beginning.  As kids this action was associated with defeat or the potential loss of the game.  Now from a theoretical and philosophical opinion there are Winners and Losers in life.  Not everyone gets a trophy, and life is not always fair.  If every patient is a COVID rule out, No Patient is a COVID rule out.  If you disagree that is certainly fine, but for me I find that you can't always win and when you loose you only work harder next time and you will eventually win.  But this topic is its own ball of wax. 

I have chosen to view this experience with more of a sports reference. #FOULBALL.  If you are not familiar with the reference I defer to google for your learning opportunity.  So in life sometimes we step up to the plate and life throws us a the perfect pitch and we hit a home run, sometimes we strike out and have to wait for our next turn.  From time to time life throws us a curveball and it is a swing and a miss, but on that rate occasion you swing, make contact and its a #FOULBALL.  

With a #FOULBALL you get another chance, you get to stand back at the plate and you get to swing again.  You didn't strike out, you didn't get on base, you simply get to go again.  For me this experience has been more than the curveball that life pitched me, or lefty trying to kill me.  It has been the opportunity to evaluate "Who I Am"! 

Since I still have no idea the 100+ people who tune in to read to my random thoughts or laugh and cry with me I feel I have to give you a little more background on some of my personality traits.  

First of all my Grandmother always told me 3 things growing up and still to this day she reminds me.

    #1 Always pay yourself.  Each paycheck you take a little bit and you pay yourself.  This becomes your rainy day fund and will help when you need it.  
    #2 Focus on your Education and then focus on the rest of life.  Education is the priority.  I think she witnessed on several occasions how focusing on life or the Jones's kept people from finishing their education.  Keep in mind that I am the second person in my family tree on her side that graduated college and the first to have a Master degree.  And on Dad's side I took first place in both categories.  
    #3 It is not about what you make, it is about what you spend.  

Now I also did not grow up in a family that had a lot of money and I quickly understood how the best train our of that was the Education train.  So when she said to focus on my education I heard that train pulling into the station to take me to financial freedom.  I always wanted my family to have a better financial foundation than we did.  I am not saying that I am rich, most people think I am.  But I just continue to remember to pay myself each paycheck, spend less than I make, and always remember the rain in coming.  I love Dave Ramsey and I am a firm believer that if you can't pay cash for it, chances are you don't need it.  

I share this to let you know that going down this path I stopped and reflected and concluded that I probably gave too much of my time to my work and not enough time to me.  I think that I got too focused on the next promotion or the next financial milestone to realize that I might have stayed on the train too long.  We have to get off at the next stop from time to time and then board the train to the next stop.   Folks, it is what it is and dwelling on the past for too long never gets you moving forward.  This post is about Change and what this experience has taught me.  And this is the biggest lesson that I think I have learned.  My perspective has changed and so my reality must also.  

Life is made up of more than your Career, your Salary, your Car, the House you live in, your social standing and for goodness sake the number of Instagram Followers you have.  Now I am not a social media addict and I don't even know how many "Facebook Friends", "Insta Followers" or "Twitter Birds" I have, because I have NEVER put any faith in any of that.  If anything I believe that Social Media has done nothing for our Social well being and has caused way more harm than any benefit to our lives.  

While we're on that topic, I can remember watching Wall-E years and years ago and thinking, folks this is as about as close as you can get to what our lives are becoming.   Folks take just a moment and really think about this picture from the movie.

And if you have not watched this movie, Disney Plus is free from about anyone, take the time and watch it.  Then think, "Who are You?"  

I also think I have spent a lot of my time focused on the future and where the train is going.  I worry that I have not spent enough time in the NOW, to appreciate my hard work and really just enjoy life.  I made life a series of patterns and steps.  And too one extent took life too serious.  Let me just say the train is going to the next station.  I like humor to cope, but what if I just enjoyed the here and now more?  We have to build the memories and the good days now, so in the future they were the "Good Ol' Days".  We have our whole lives ahead of us.  And the sad dark reality is that I have learned that the future looks a lot different between you and I.  We have no way of knowing how long this rollercoaster is, how big the pie is, or how much gas is left in the tank.  So I am going to start sharing my time with the Now and the Future.  There is a little less in my tank now and I have to enjoy it.  I am blessed that my Cancer diagnosis was not accompanied by a expiration date.  My war with this disease is not over but I have won this battle. 

I have also come to the reality that my friends are way more awesome than I thought they were.  You really never know who your real friends are till you need them.  So I have been amazed and how wonderful each of them have been.  I am going to be more Social, more engaged and more participatory in life.  And that does not involve a computer or mobile device.  It is verbal in person communication.  

I have always said I want to go here or I want to go there.  And I will create reasons why I can not go now and I will say next year, or next summer.  Well if 2020 didn't teach you about how quickly life can change, you might want to wake up and take a look outside.  The reality is this might be as good as it gets, so we have to learn to accept it and move on.  No need to live in fear or worry about the what ifs.  I can promise you if your not trick or treating this year, the what ifs will be and at some point they will knock on your door.  

I joined a support group for young people with cancer.  I will not be going back to the support group, I did not find it to be emotionally what I needed at this point in my life.  I am a firm believer that support groups and a good mental health professional make for a rounded person.  But you got to find the right group and right professional.  This particular group ws for people under 40 who are actively going through a cancer journey.  I found out really quick that cancer is far worse than what I have experienced.  The majority of those in the group have a terminal diagnosis.  That was way more than my emotional health could handle and my brain was screaming abort abort.  But what I did learn is that life is that someone else always has it worse.  

Each of us are going to be thrown a curve ball when we step up to the plate.  It is part of the strategy and it is just life.  And if you swing and hit a #FOULBALL, remember that you get another chance.  My curveball was Cancer.  And I hit a #FOULBALL, and I am getting another chance, it is not the third strike for me in this inning.  Your curveball could be the loss of a spouse, parent or child.  It could be a traumatic injury, the loss of your job, a stroke, heart attack or just about anything that doesn't go according to plan.  It could be the terrible "C" word that sucks.  But it's not the pitch that gets us, it is how we choose to respond to the pitch.  Some of you will hit it out of the park, others will be a swing and a miss.  You get to choose, you are in control and You Got This!  

I can't tell you if I am in the bottom of the 3rd or the Top of the 7th.  But I am still in the game and as long as I am in the game, I am going to step up to the plate wait for life to pitch the ball and swing.  Just like you I am not going to hit the ball every time and I might strike out, but until the game is over, we get another chance.