Lessons I Learned The Day I Died-Transformation

As my Chaplin once told me "...our brains are not geared to deal with death..."

How True.

We all go along our daily lives, making plans, setting goals, business and career plans, social plans, vacation plans, education plans, family plans, personal growth plans and so on. Point being we are focused on LIVING.

And that is a good thing, a natural thing.

Then one day you go to the hospital for something you suspect, in my case a bowel obstruction, of which I've had a few and all have passed in the past. TWO months later and surgery as well I am told I have less than a year to live.

This is not something I would wish on anyone.

I've had numerous discussions on whether its "good to know or better to go" and I'll share my thoughts on that later. As well as the wave of emotions that you go through-also at a later post.

A couple of things do stand out in my mind though;

I remember reading the newspaper in early 2009 and came upon an article about the upcoming winter olympics in Vancouver and throwing the paper away in disgust because my only thought was "why bother reading about this, I won't be around to enjoy it anyways".

Another incident that stands out in my mind is looking incredulously at my wife when she came home from a shopping spree and one of the items was a 4-pack of Colgate toothpaste. What a waste of money I thought, I'll never live long enough to use them all up.

Well going from those "frames of mind" to now making plans again, looking ahead to the future, is a transformation that took quite a while and one that has taught me a lot about life.

I have always been a modest peron, living a modest life, blessed to be married to an incredible individual and having a succesful career. I've always taken great joy at helping others, whether at work as their manager or at the community through volunteer work.

Now it was

WHY ME?

And now it still is

WHY ME?

When I was stricken I always wondered WHY ME? But ironically when I was blessed with the good news this past January I also asked WHY ME?

I feel that my current situation comes with a big responsibility-one of sharing, inspiring, giving hope and motivation.

Stay tuned for future posts as I take you on my journey and the elements that brought about my Transformation.

Please pass along this blog to anyone you feel may need a "pick me up", wherever they are in their journey of life.