I've Been Wondering How I Can Use My Cancer Experience to Make Me a Better Human Being

My operation is to be next week. Then I’ll have to wait for the results of the biopsy. In the meantime, in what ways is this event affecting my life?

Weirdly, one of the things I’ve noticed is that I feel a lot calmer than usual.

Perhaps the increased realization of mortality has made me more present with everyday life. Perhaps I am valuing each day more. I have definitely become more thoughtful.

So, that’s two good results.

This difference surprised me

Almost overnight I’ve become less commercial.

What does that mean?

To me it means I’ve lost my interest in growing my income, my client base, and my followers. These growth data points simply don’t matter to me anymore. Even if my cancerous growth turns out to be non-malignant I doubt if I will ever again concern myself with data points.

Perhaps I’ve realized that such things never drove my successes anyway.

What did drive my success?

I studied marketing and what successful people said, but it never really worked for me.

My business was built on relationships. That’s funny because I’m by nature a bit of a loner, something of an introvert. Yet I made a few strong and important connections on which my business thrived. I never thought I initiated these relationships. It was more a case that they developed as a result of the people I coached improving in some noticeable way.

I never sought to actively build relationships. They just happened as a result of the good feelings that my coaching clients developed.

This has made me feel good

I like to walk my dogs through the ancient woodland and meadows around my house.

Last week, during one such walk, I decided that I want to live in a more loving way. Since that realization, I’ve been trying to figure out what it actually means. How does one live in a more loving way?

So far I am just allowing the feeling to flow.

How it happened

Perhaps what I’m grappling with here is what Plato described as “the beauty of goodness”.

Do you have to get sick to get good? Of course, it’s not a prerequisite, but I can see how being given a shock can make one reassess one’s values. However, in my case, I don’t think this is how it happened.

It was more like I drifted into a place of calmness over the course of a couple of weeks. And then, out of that calmness flowed the thought of being more loving.

The benefit of this way of being

The first thing I’ve noticed is that I have become more quietly aware.

I now notice the impact on my emotions of what happens to me and around me. As a result, I do not react so quickly, most of the time. I have always wanted to be able to “pause and take a deep breath before responding”. But I’ve never before been very good at it.

Now I just seem to quite naturally pause and think. Weirdly, it feels as if I have more time.

How “thinking time” changes

It’s possible that I now have even less time than I thought I had.

But “thinking time” seems to be a bit different. It’s like I get distracted less easily. I don’t feel that my thinking is more focused, it’s more like I get longer streams of conscious concentration. Perhaps my thinking is now deeper. Maybe this is because it is now more imperative to try to get to the bottom of thoughts — to conclusive answers.

I don’t feel any need to hurry, just to find better answers — for what? For who?

The second big change in my feeling about myself

The first big change happened sometime in my fifties.

At that time I felt myself changing from someone who was very self-centered and self-obsessed into someone who started to have concerns about other people. Not all other people, but the people who were close to me and my clients.

I think it was realizing that other people were struggling with life’s conundrums and hurt just as much as I was.

And then came the realization that I had discovered a lot of good answers that others hadn’t yet managed to figure out.

It was the realization that I could help others through my coaching that was humbling. It gave me a sense of being worthwhile.

Now, the second big change is the feeling that I want to help others in a more loving way. This is making me feel good.

Did I need to get this scare to drive me forward?

Probably not.

But, then again, we always need a catalyst for change. And fear is often the initial motivator. This begs the question, “Will there be sufficient pleasure in this way of being for me to be able to sustain the effort to feel this way should my cancerous growth turn out to be non-malignant?”

I could just wait and see what the answer turns out to be.

Or, I could start right now by making this feeling of being more loving into a habit that will last me for the rest of my life. I like the sound of that.

Thanks for reading.

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This post was previously published on Making It Happen.

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