Cancer is a gift?

Well, I could almost say everyone will hope that they are free from some terrible disease and I'm sure cancer is one of those dreaded ones. However, I had a friend who viewed cancer as a gift because he believed that everything happens for a reason. For this, he took it as life lesson instead of as part of statistics of people died out of it.

Well, as you might have guessed, the person passed away. But in the 1.5 years that he was confirmed suffering from cancer, he did a lot of things most people won't do - making a meaning out of it besides the usual gung-ho fight of 'I will survive'.

Along the way, this guy inspired many of his friends including me, and from friends who passed on the word, had inspired many friends of friends. There are many meaningful lessons from this chap and for me, the ones below are the most inspiring:

• instead of using blogs to defame someone, vet our frustration, this guy introduced blog as a way to 'visit' him virtually and a way to share his experience with those who are interested. This blog was actually inspiration from this friend and I earned a compliment from him as 'the new kid on the blog'
• this guy printed out 'business cards' that say 'Occupation : Cancer patient'! He introduced to me the concept that we must have a role in our life, not merely in our job. Since he had cancer, his new life job was to share his learning
• we have ups and downs and there are times things seem to happen with or without a cause. But instead of the typical positive thinking of 'things will get better' or 'the tough gets going' kind of mindsets, he chose a new dimension called 'make meaning'. Whatever should not happen has happened. But since it has happened, should we just lament it or can we 'make meaning' out of it? There was one time I felt very bad that I spoke bad about someone via sms and I didn't realize that I was sending this sms to the guy I spoke badly about! It had already happened and besides cursing myself for being stupid, I made a meaning out of it by telling myself 'good words wont betray others; betraying words cant be good'

Recently, a few friends of his edited all the postings in his blog and made a book out of it. To this group, I salute their commitment and perseverance despite the busy schedule that everyone has. For those who want a copy, please refer to the following blog for details:

http://www.fhbadventure.blogspot.com/

But for those who want to read the blogs in its original form, just go through the blogs. The comments could be equally interesting too.

There is also one party that most of us forget to thank, blogger.com itself for being the enabler. So to blogger.com, thank you for providing the blog site that have benefited millions!