A life's lesson

So this week I wanted to write about what happens in our lives and what it can teach us.

Since I wrote ‘my toughest year’ and the follow up to that post, I have kind of been struggling about what more I can write about to help deliver a lesson on life.

Has anybody been suffering from the January lull?

Perhaps not feeling as upbeat about this year as you thought you might be?

I was certainly feeling like that.

The problem is, I set so many goals last year and I’m so pleased that I completed them all, that I kind of left myself with nothing to aim for this year.

Obviously a holiday here or there is a must for anybody. I was looking into challenges such as the Ice Ultra challenge, a 250km race across Lapland in Finland that is run over 5 days. At 40 miles a day and only 2 months to train, it was a bit much for me and I didn’t want to get over confident.

After all, I have two metal hips now and am very limited to what challenges I can take part in.

For this reason, I have been suffering a bit with my motivation for my own goals. I’m not quite sure what I’m aiming for this time around.

I did sign myself up for another boxing match which will keep me fit and training and will also keep my head busy whilst I figure out what step to take next. I was finding that without anything at all in the pipeline, I was eating rubbish and not exercising, which resulted in me feeling crappy and low on energy so it made sense to at least do something I enjoyed, even though I had done it before, but it gets me up and motivated.

The realisation that I can’t play football anymore and do as much as everyone else has really hit me hard and it’s a tough one to get out of I’ll admit.

This morning I received a phone call from my mother….

She called to tell me that my Auntie’s cancer had returned and this time it had returned to her Liver which isn’t good news.

My Auntie is an amazing lady, who lost her husband (my Uncle) to cancer when I was about 14. She was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 years ago.

She also had a bout of skin cancer and had a tumour removed before.

When I went to on my holidays to Spain last year and to see my family in Gib, I hadn’t seen any of them for a very long time.

My Auntie would walk about with us under an umbrella because she wasn’t allowed to get the sun on her skin. Not once did I see her smile leave her face, the smile she always had on her face for since I can remember.

Her attitude was so positive; it was an inspiration.

She was having chemotherapy which would knock her for 6 and wouldn’t be able to leave the house for a day or two but when she did, she would have that smile on her face.

Going through that and coming out the other side to then hearing the news that she was given, I can’t even begin to imagine how that must feel.

Hearing the news this morning broke all of our hearts. To be so positive for the past through years and be told that she has beaten the cancer, for it to come back in this way just seems so unfair.

But life isn’t fair sometimes is it?

My Auntie chose to be positive every day. My family would worry about her, try to wrap her in cotton wool but she wouldn’t have it, she just wanted to live a normal life and be happy.

Obviously this is a very personal matter but I am sharing it with you because I feel we can take note from this kind of situation.

What do we have to feel negative about in life? I mean really?

For me I am lucky enough to still be here after the emergency surgery I had on my leg, so even though I can’t do as much as I used to, I still have a choice about how I live my life.

Being positive in what seems to be an impossible situation, is a challenge. It’s tough. It’s a true test of what you’re made of.

But at the end of the day we have that choice. Had a bad week at work? Well you can choose to leave that week behind you and choose to start a fresh.

The choices we make are what make our lives the best they can be; nobody can do it for you.

Hearing that news this morning, after feeling a bit sorry for myself, got me thinking that I have the choice not to feel this way, the same way that my Auntie had the choice not to let her circumstances get the better of her and still get out every day, see her friends, go about her normal routine, and be happy.

I took this mornings news as a lesson, pure and simple. Hard news to take but we all turned It into a positive.

I hope this blog will be taken the right way and to just remember that if you are struggling to get going yet this year, there is still time on the clock, you can change your circumstances just like that, it all that’s with you and the way you think about your situation and circumstances.

Phil