Our Mortality is Our Power

A person can be a philosopher when reaching a certain age and having had some bumps along the way. Hope you don't mind me going off topic but I want to share something that changed my life.

I have stage four lymphoma. The main tumor is the size of a volleyball. Fortunately, it is the one cancer that is quite treatable at that stage. Obviously, I would rather not have cancer but I am lucky to have one that is treatable (though not curable). I have tremendous confidence in my medical team and am getting what I believe to be the most effective treatment.

I still must recognize the possibility that this could kill me, but I don't worry about it very much. Survival statistics are very encouraging. As big as it is, there have been no symptoms. When I do think about it, I get angry and want to fight even harder.

Even if the cancer doesn't get me, lots of other things may. I could walk across the street to get the mail and get hit by a car. It's clearly an extremely low risk since I always look both ways. There are countless other examples. Astronaut John Glenn was blasted into space on an undependable rocket. His spacecraft had only thirty minutes of spaceflight and the last one sunk, nearly drowning the astronaut. He came through it without a scratch. Later he fell in a hotel bathroom and had a concussion and inner ear injury.

Obviously, the thought of death is scary. But it's what gives us our power. If we were immortal, we would never accomplish anything because there was always tomorrow. Rather than fearing it, we should embrace it’s power to better our lives.
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A sense of my mortality led to the best thing that ever happened to me. My dad has always been an avid photographer. My best guess is that I looked at 11-12,000 pictures. I selected around 1,700, scanned, Photoshopped and sorted them. Everyday I was seeing pictures of people who had died. I gave some real thought about what I most wanted in my life. I decided it was someone special to share my life with. After nine months of online dating, I met the love of my life. We only had two years together but I treasure every moment.
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