What if you were running out of time...

So I have to confess something. I was hoping cancer would change me more than it has. Maybe the specter of death or even just being sick would help me answer some fundamental questions like "What is the meaning of life?" or, more practically, "What am I doing with my life?" I had this fantasy of waking up each morning with a joy-filled sense of purpose. I thought maybe I wouldn't feel so confused by life, that things would seem simpler, clearer. I also hoped I'd find myself braver. Somehow, having cancer would help me find the "off button" for anxiety and self-doubt. Guess what? Didn't happen. I'm still me, stuck with the same dilemmas, conflicting emotions, habits of mind I had before. Plus, the sheer annoyance of the cancer and treatment process make life seem harder, not easier. Not that I haven't learned a lot, become more patient, a bit tougher, etc. But no magic transformations. Damn! So, if that's the case, I guess I just have to work harder at it. Last night, while looking at a website about breast cancer, I was reminded about just how grim a cancer I have. Pre-menopause onset, triple negative, stage 4 within months. So, while it's not useful or smart to think negatively, it did make me ask myself a useful question. If I DID know I had limited time left (more than enough to just say my goodbyes and visit Disney World) but enough time to accomplish something, what would it be? I don't really have a bucket list because there are just too many things I could do and no meaningful way to choose. In the end, I don't see my life as a collection of experiences, a kind of checklist to get through. Plus, I've already done a lot: lived abroad, learned another language, been on safari, sung to large crowds, reared two great kids. Would I gladly do more? Sure! But, in answering the "If I had one good year left..." I don't jump to a list of travel locations or exotic experiences. What I want is to do is some good work. I'd like to leave more of a mark than I have so far. I'd like the world, the course of history, to be shifted slightly because I was here. As alluded to in paragraph one, I'm still stuck with a lot of the fears and limitations I always had. Rats! But, if time were running out fast (which it is for all of us), what then? So, let's start with admitting here what I really want. What I'd really like to do is help prove that the "hard-ass" view of the world is wrong and that we can get much more done through openness, tolerance, respect and humor than harshness and competition. I believe people are capable of much more than we've allowed of in the past, and that we are on the brink of great change for the better. Hey, I admit there's a lot about human beings not to love. I'm a history major, and you only have to take a cursory glance through the 20th century (not to mention all the other centuries) to find some pretty disheartening stuff. We are capable of doing really bad, and really stupid things. We do it all the time. You could pretty easily give up on the idea that life can be significantly better than it is, given our demonstrated capacity to mess up, lie to ourselves, and treat each other badly. But I think this is an exciting time to be alive. We are just beginning, through science, to gain a real understanding of our own nature and our brains. And we finally have the technology to gather huge amounts of data and test our theories about ourselves. For the first time in human history, we have a potential way to get past our own blindness when we look in the mirror. I've got to be honest. I wouldn't be all that excited about this if all we were learning is more about how rotten we are. Up until fairly recently, a lot of what we thought we knew was pretty freaking depressing. From evolutionary theory, to Adam Smith and B.F. Skinner, the reigning portrait of humankind was that we could be counted on to be selfish, driven primarily by sex and survival, and manipulated best through punishments and rewards. I find this depressing. More than that, it doesn't feel like an accurate picture of the inside of my own head, nor the way people I knew seemed to behave, at least not all the time. It always seemed to me that people are capable of acting from a different place, given the right conditions. Newer research that peers deeply into what motivates us and how we behave offers a complex, nuanced, and I think more hopeful view of how we operate. Altruism, cooperation, curiosity can also drive us. To be fair, we are also learning more about how profoundly irrational and (frankly) nuts we can be. But even this is helpful. Better to know you have blind spots than to crash about convinced you see the light! So, what I'd like to do is contribute to building a world in which more of us get the chance to tap into the less brutal parts of our nature, our curiosity, our creativity, our altruism, courage, humor, compassion, and joy. I believe we can create organizations and systems that bring out the best in us. I, frankly, am tired of living in a world run by people who assume the worst about people. I've always gotten the best results in my own life by assuming the best of people and then acting in a way that makes it easier for them to live up to that expectation. I believe organizations should do the same. If we don't like the behavior we see, we should assume the conditions are making it hard for people to do better, and try something new. And try again. Until we get it right, which includes people feeling truly engaged, useful and appreciated. So, if I am using this cancer experience to find the focus and courage to do what I most care about, what then? Coaching business owners is one way to do this, but it is a slow process one business at a time, and quite dependent on the owner sharing the vision and being willing to do what it takes to implement it. What I'd like to do more is public speaking on this topic. Being in front of an audience, engaging them, answering their questions and taking them through exercises that change their thinking is my favorite way of working. If I had very little time left, that's what I'd do much of the time. So maybe it's time to figure out a way to do just that?