Opportunities Are Always Here!

It’s a stormy, second day of spring morning  in the Shenandoah Valley (my present location until later today). I have a busy day planned starting with my annual cancer follow up with my doctor, then attend a funeral of a long time friend and neighbor, then change clothes and, go to storage unit #1 and pick up things I left there over the weekend, then to storage unit #2 and pick up a number of cartons of books to transport to northern VA with me. I then head to Front Royal, VA to pick up mail, including forwarded mail from my South Dakota address, a quick stop at Walmart to pick up a few provisions and then I trek down I-66 to Falls Church, VA, where I’ll spend the rest of the week (as well as in Fairfax, VA – about 12 miles away from Falls Church).

I expect a very positive report from my doctor – this is eight years from my surgery. The funeral, I hope will be a celebration of my friend’s life. We were neighbors in a wooded, mountain community for about 13 years and our sons went to school and played together for a number of  those years. Barbara fought a tough battle against ovarian cancer for about three years. I don’t like attending funerals, however, it is important to pay my respect for someone I’ve been associated with for a long time. It’s also a reminder of how fragile life is and how vulnerable we are. I certainly don’t dwell on the ultimate termination of existence everyone faces, but I do acknowledge it. My preference is to focus on today, this moment, now. Making future plans and having goals is certainly a useful exercise. But, we don’t have a clue what the next moment or hour will bring. This was certainly true for the people of Japan who just experienced a one-two punch with the recent earthquake and tsunami. One minute, carrying on their regular day to day lives, a half hour later, everything that was – was no longer, including thousands of their lives. So, we really must learn to live as free and happy as possible as much of the time as we can.

I had an interesting conversation of Friday with a long time friend and one of my former authors, Hal Becker, author of one of the best selling books I published, Can I Have 5 Minutes of Your Time. Hal and I hadn’t spoken by phone or in person for a number of years, but we had chatted periodically by email. Hal was the #1 salesman for Xerox Corporation in his mid 20’s. He became an acclaimed and in demand independent sales trainer. He also became a cancer survivor in his mid to late 20’s dealing with a serious bout with Lymphoma. This is a pretty deadly form of cancer. It often hits with a one-two punch. First it attacks you and your doctors fight it aggressively with chemotherapy and, often, a course of radiation. If you’re lucky and you beat it, it won’t come back. Many are not lucky and it takes their lives. Still others recover from it only to have it recur perhaps a year or a year and a half later, much more aggressively then the first bout. A lot of these victims do not survive since their bodies haven’t recovered sufficiently to go through another aggressive battle. Hal is one of three people I know who have survived for any period of time. He is past 25 years from his battle.

Well, we all know that cancer is a negative thing and something none of us want to experience. Those of us who have experienced cancer at virtually any level and are survivors have a different outlook on life, typically. Hal Becker is one of those people. Like many people over the past few years, Hal experienced a significant downturn in his business due to the fallen economy. He’s been telling me for several years that he wanted to slow down, spend more time with his family (he has a daughter who just began college) and catch up on some of the dreams he had set aside, as we all tend to do. But, he kept saying, well just one more year . . . just one more year. But life happens whether we plan it or not and all to often, it’s not what we planned. So, Hal is now not as busy as he was traveling around the country and internationally speaking and training. Hal got together with a bunch of other guys in his age bracket and rekindled his old “rock and roll” days. He dusted off his drum set, dating back to the 60’s and formed a rock and roll band. The band doesn’t make much money and much of what they do is for the benefit of others, but they have a great time performing the music they played when they were teenagers and had their local rock bands in the Cleveland area.

All of the members of the band have “day jobs” of one sort or another, but they are all loosening up and grabbing those dreams again. They are finding ways to let go of the various things that have controlled so much of their time and enjoying life more fully. What may be viewed by many as a negative time – has turned out to be a positive opportunity for Hal and his friends. Here’s a link to some of Hal’s YouTubes.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84ep48OQwN0

As Hal and I were wrapping up our conversation we both became a bit philosophical and Hal laid these two bits of wisdom on me.

First, Hal tells people when he does various sales training and other programs to remember: “It’s not who you are. It’s not what you do. It’s who you love and who loves you that counts.”

His second bit of wisdom is from Hal’s wife, Holly. Holly suggest that we,” Don’t be buried in the sweater we never wore.”

There’s a lot of simple wisdom in both of those statements. I pass them on to you from Hal and Holly.

By the way, I’m back from my doctor’s appointment and from attending the funeral as I complete this post. My doctor said, everything is perfect and he’ll see me in another year. The funeral was small, but upbeat, the way we should send everyone off on a journey to . . .

Live free, Laugh hard, Love much and be Happy,

Ed