Winning Your Life, Losing The Game

You know the kid with the thick black glasses and no coordination who is always picked last for teams in physical education and on the playground?

I was that kid.

With my pop bottle glasses I could see the world. When I took off my glasses during sports so they wouldn’t break all I saw were vague globs of colors. I was the kid hit by the first dodge ball. Too short and blind to get a basketball to the rim. I had no idea where any kind of ball was headed until it hit me. Or hit near me.

I was the runt in high school who was all over the soccer field stealing the ball and taking down the jocks. The big guys who always played on the first squad in football and basketball. The guys a foot taller and at least fifty pounds heavier than me. They complained to Coach because I was kicking them while nicking the ball from between their feet and scoring goals.

The big guys — the school heroes — found out the little guy in thick glasses might not say a lot, but they had to watch him.

I knew that I would never be anything in sports, which was religion where I came from. I learned that my strengths were in other areas.

My goal was to escape small town life in the Upper Midwest so that I could win my life. I didn’t need to win games.

I needed to win my life.

In more ways that can be told in a short space, I have been winning at life.

The jocks who were the high school heroes were some of the first to say hello and ask about my life when I returned to town after high school.

The people I have met living in different regions of America opened my mind to new ways of thinking. Whole new ways of being that I would never have imagined.

I have done some of the things I dreamt of as a boy. I have spent weeks riding trains across the fields and mountains of this country. Sailing across harbors and sounds to visit islands surrounded by blue ocean seas. Day after day walking through museums, galleries and libraries. Weeks of silence in monasteries and retreat houses. Feasted on everything from rock concerts to opera, lobster to tacos.

Five years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. It feels like the rounds of visits to doctors and hospitals will never end. There are constant rounds of tests. My family and friends are tremendous support. My coworkers at my last job were shocked when I told them I had cancer. They were even more shocked when I told them it’s tremendously boring and, all things considered, I’d rather spend my endless appointments at work. When it was time for more tests, more appointments, I made the point of informing my boss that I would be back as soon as humanly possible.

Medical tests are not as interesting as putting together spreadsheets and business reports. Definitely not as much fun as riding on trains or airplanes.

My enormously patient and long-suffering spouse learned that days when I spend long periods at appointments mean leftovers or mediocre takeout for dinner. No apologies. Sometimes it’s the best I can do.

I made clear to the doctors and everybody else involved is that I refuse to die from cancer. It will not take me down.

I am in life to live. I am not here to be a loser. To let the small stuff get me down.

Cancer is the small stuff.

In the middle of the coronavirus epidemic we hear about rising numbers of drug and alcohol addiction. More physical abuse. More suicides.

What we don’t hear about are the people who have decided that they’re not going to put up with their addictions or depression any more. They’re tired of losing their lives. The media doesn’t talk about the people who are finding help for their psychological and spiritual distress.

Growing numbers of people tell me they are tired of the same old thing in their lives. They are making previously unfathomable changes to improve their lives. In the process, they are becoming aware that there is an unending domino effect which will improve others’ lives.

It’s not every day that I wake up remembering that I have this cancer growing in me. I also recall the time a few years ago when one doctor told me I could live another thirty years like this.

When you decide to live a happy life, any good thing is possible.