Finding Purpose For My Life

Just having the belief that your life has purpose is such a powerful thing.  It builds an inner fighting spirit that can defeat anything.  This I believe is the true meaning behind the Nietzsche quote, "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”


Over the past week I have been working through many of the lessons and subsequent techniques that I employed to get through the initial stages of diagnosis, the difficult transition to living the life of a patient, and my subsequent personal growth.  The greatest lesson I learnt that stuck with me and got me through many of the most difficult times was finding purpose.  Now this is a super broad topic as it can mean anything and for me as time when by my act of finding purpose shifted.

In the beginning stages while in hospital my finding purpose centered around finding purpose in my own life.  It is a pretty hard thing to do actually and truthfully you can't actually achieve this just through reflection.  I didn't achieve it but through reflection I knew my life had purpose and it just wasn't revealed to me yet.  In addition, I knew that my illness would provide me a purpose once I beat it as I would want to become active someone in the fight against it.  Just having the belief that your life has purpose is such a powerful thing.  It builds an inner fighting spirit that can defeat anything.  This I believe is the true meaning behind the Nietzsche quote, "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”  This one quote got me through my most difficult and painful times going through chemo.

I knew I wanted to get involved in the fight against blood cancers and while I was in the hospital I kept getting all these great ideas (remember how I like to attack everything quickly still at this point).  As luck would have it I was fortunate to get to meet and have a chat with a renowned psychologist and cancer researcher in the power of thought and relaxation.  During our conversation I conveyed how I felt this happened to me to give me some purpose to give back and help the fight. He gave me some of the best advice and said I wouldn't be much good to helping if I didn't make it. I had to focus on just getting better first and then when I made it through I could shift to helping in the fight. This led me down the path that my main purpose for the next two years was focusing on myself and defeating this disease.

I still didn't feel this was enough and while in the hospital I had two lightbulbs as I call them on things that could help with the fight but not take away from my focus and 2 year purpose of defeating this disease.  The came when I was receiving some blood products and I was so grateful that someone would take the time to give so that I could live.  It saddened me though because I knew that I would never be able to give back in this regard because of my treatment, and so was born the blood challenge where I called upon all of you to give back on my behalf.

The second way I came up with to give back was this blog.  I came up with the idea that the blog could actually follow my journey (my purpose).  While my purpose was to defeat cancer it would document when I went through and any tips I found along the way that may help some other person going through this terrible disease.  As I moved through the treatments I realized this blog was so much more.  It gives an inside look into what I as a cancer patient am going through to a lot of people who have no direct exposure to cancer.  That is when I realized that my predominant readership base was not cancer patients.  As the year progressed I switched the purpose of the blog as I realized my journey could provide insight and lessons to a lot of people that aren't going through cancer as well.  Why should we have to all go through this terrible disease to reap the rewards right :)  I can do it for all of you and pass along what I learn :D 

And so that is where we stand today.  I will continue to find small things that help with my overall focus of helping combat this disease but I am still in the surviving stage so it will mainly be through this blogging forum.  I am sure as the year goes along I will find other purposes to adjust my focus to but until then I will keep doing what I am doing and continue to enjoy everyday the best I can.

PS I am still waiting to hear some of your hobbies that you will try this year in order to add passion in our lives ;)  Take sometime to reflect on what the purpose of your life.  It doesn't have to huge and change the whole world.  Changing your world or someone's elses is just as huge.  Don't let this cartoon become you :)

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