What life is like now...

My mother in law Leanna asked me an interesting question the other night. She wondered why, when I am doing so well coping physically and mentally with the cancer, my blog seems to focus on "the dark side." Since that wasn't my intention, here's a more balanced view of my life theses days. It's not all gory medical visits and nausea. I am doing extremely well, blood counts good, spirits good, energy as good as could be reasonably expected.

This is my life: When I got my diagnosis, I made some decisions. I wanted to keep coaching my current clients but not to actively grow the business until I was well enough to know I could handle more. My first obligation was to take care of the people and businesses I was committed to. So, I immediately ceased all marketing activities except social media and email newsletters. To reduce expenses, I reduced my team's hours and let our intern go. I moved out of my office, while having them still answer my phone and take mail.

I have shifted my bi- monthly clients to meet during the "up" portion of the 2- week chemo cycle. My clients have been wonderfully flexible and accommodating. To a person, their attitude has been "first priority is getting you well." Maybe this is not a business-like mindset, at least not in the short term! Yet, in my work with them, we try not to treat people like cogs in a machine, but to assume they are thinking, caring people. Of course, we also let people go when they can't handle being held accountable, but I always ask them as leaders to look first in the mirror when not getting the results they want from their team. So, I guess it's not surprising that they have decided to work with me as I face this shitty thing.

So I once again work from home. In the past, this was hard for me, but now I love it. I wake up and have coffee with Steve. He makes breakfast for me and for Joseph before he heads off to his internship. I write in my gratitude journal and meditate, do Sedona releasing, talk to Steve, blog, or whatever it takes to get my spirits up and ready to face the day. Depending on how I feel, this is easy or it is hard.

My days consist of a few appointments and lots of open space. On the second week of the chemo cycle, I often have 1-2 offsite meetings with clients. I try to leave the Monday after chemo open, because that's a hard day in which I might not be much good to anyone. I group meetings and coaching sessions in the other week where I can. Some days, the balance is just right. Others are very demanding or boring. I keep working to get it right.

It's odd (and very lucky) that I have so much unstructured time. On good days, I work on the house, write (which takes far more energy), cook wonderful meals, exercise and catch up on business stuff. On bad days, I read, watch old movies and sleep. It's an odd, suspended kind of life and, when I feel strong, I can start to feel guilty that I'm not doing more. Then I catch a virus, or the chemo just seems to rear up, and I am grateful I have the time to do nothing much. It's not a way of life I'd want forever, and I'll be glad when my energy comes roaring back, but it's a good life, and one I am doing my best to savor.
So, if you are nearby, please reach out and visit. All I ask is that you cancel if you are sick and that you understand if I cancel because I am. Call me. Spending some of my open time talking to old friends adds richness to my life. I am committed to investing the energy I have to building depth into my life. My son Joseph said to me the other day that is our connections to other people that give meaning to our lives. So I am strengthening the connections I have with all of you, reading fiction (which has always deepened my life by bringing of other lives into it), creating beauty and order by working on our house, cooking good meals and feeding my family, singing and writing.

One thing I know now for sure is that my time here will be too short, whether it's 50 years or 5. I still struggle with the great questions of life, with leading a life of purpose. I am too damned analytical to accept easy answers, yet I still strive for inner peace. I suspect my life will not be large, not of a scale that impacts human history in any measurable way. What has kept me from great ambition, other than pure cowardice, is a lack of certainty. I have never wanted to stride masterfully into the world, bending people and events to my will, until I knew the effects would be good. Call it the curse of the history major, but you don't have to look far to know that "great" men (mostly men) have done tremendous evil. And not one of them hasn't had the courage of their convictions that they are right. Delusional, but right.

So I wonder, and question myself. And I know, facing this cancer, that the price I am most likely to pay for this is that I will live a small and unremarkable life. My impact, like that of Dorothea in Middlemarch, will be like the force of a great river broken into small rivulets, impacting other lives on a small scale, where I can have at least some confidence of doing little harm. Even there, it's tough to tell. Any time a business owner let's someone go, makes a major investment, chooses not to act, I know there will be ripple effects neither of us can see.

So that is my life right now. Who knows, maybe the book I plan to write, the direction I take my business when I get well, a complete change of plans or circumstances, will change the trajectory and find me on a larger stage. It would be cool and wonderful to know I am making a large impact, so long as I don't forget the blinding and intoxicating nature of power. Even Frodo could not destroy the ring at the end. It was only his compassion and humility, in the form of the broken and valueless life he spared, that saved him and the world.

True greatness requires humility and I am coming to terms with my own weaknesses as I fight off this nasty disease and hope for just a bit more time to figure a few things out and do what I can to leave the world better for having passed through it. Don't we all?