Hope-Cancer

Hope is, in part, the knowledge that life can get better, not that it will, but the possibility. It is the cornerstone to sound mental health and it is essential to ones well being, whether one is healthy or ill. Hope is what gets us all out of bed to make our way through our long, and often arduous and stressful days.

Hope is what any immigrant hold on to as he makes the sometimes  treacherous journey from his home to America. A better tomorrow, a better life, a better quality of life is the desire of all hope.

Even if one is terminal, it is critical to find those victories, however small or short lived, to make ones life better.

If one lives long enough, there will come a point where one will need to reinvent ones self and redefine onespurpose. Whether it be the loss of a job, the loss of a spouse, or the loss of a parent, one thing is certain--loss is part of life.  How one deals with it is a personal choice. Give up? Fight? Just cope with the loss and move on?  How we weather these storms defines us as individuals and our ability to adjust and measures our inner strength. There are those who find a way to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on. Even during times of adversity one has choices.

God helps those who help themselves. Even though I am not religious, the idea has great meaning and personally resonates with me. Resilience is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger and easier it is to cope.  The less you use it, it atrophies and withers away to nothing.

My blog is not only way of fighting back, it is my way of keeping busy and moving forward in the face of adversity.  It is also a very small way of giving back. Since the start of the blog, my life has taken a turn for the better- not my health, but my life. I have been blessed with finding a job, a job that has real potential to turn into something more, provided I do my job well and - providing my health holds out.  Regardless, it gives me purpose.  People are depending on me to do my job. I have also have been blessed with meeting the most wonderful woman, who for the first time in over two years, truly makes me happy and alive.  I could not be happier, my life once again has purpose, meaning, and direction. Hope, it truly is a wonderful thing. None of this would be possible had I given up hope and tried to make my life better.

For those of you who are ill and are reading this, you too can do the same thing.  My success may not be yours- yours may be better or  may fall short, but it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. Even if you are too tired to work (something I fully appreciate) you can still make small but positive steps in your life-volunteer at a hospital, cancer center, whatever it is. The life you enrich will not only be yours but those lives you touch.