Severity

I was thinking the other day, "How would I deal with a diagnoses that was terminal?"  Lets say six months to live.  Or maybe a 25 percent chance of a two-year survival? Would I be singing a different tune?  That's what I want to think about today.
     It would be a whole different ball game.  Or would it?
     I think I said in an earlier blog we are all going to die, we just dont know when or how.  If we did we would live our daily lives in a different manner.  Kinder, gentler and more open to relationships.  Or would we rebel?  Pissed, sad, depressed, angry, unfair, and act down right shitty.  Now those are two completely different approaches to the same situation.  They  also look from the perspective of the patient or victim.  We could look at this situation from many different perspectives,  Wife, kids, friends, your dogs.  But lets concentrate on our perspective first.  Like all moments, we live with the hope to be present and to enjoy the moment we possess.  That is probably the goal of all our lives, isn't it?  To be happy now.  To feel content in the lives we are leading.  To feel like we have run the good race, ending with a smile on our face.
     So if we know the goal, it should not be too hard to modify our behavior in order to obtain that goal.  Now I know we are all different and we all have different goals, Hell, there are eight billion people on the earth and probably as many goals.  Money, Wealth, Fame, and of course the biggy,
Power.  Goals, yes, but not what in the end will bring you happiness and a sense of a life well lived.
     So let assume our goal is to be happy and to help others be happy along this journey.  I am using happy here as a word that embodies the emotion of peace, contentment, compassion, well being, and success.  With our goal in mind, it shouldn't matter what's in front of us.  You modify your behavior and your actions to obtain your goal.  Easy.  Of course some roads will be harder than others.  Do you have a 25 percent chance of dying from cancer in the next six months or will you contract a disease that takes you out in two months?  Will you be in a motor vehicle accident tomorrow?  Or will you experience an emotional loss so great that it makes it impossible to function?  Oh, don't we have a lot to look forward to?  So much on our plates.  The trick is to not lose tract of  the goal.  Keep the goal in mind and you will be working towards a good and gracious outcome.  Lose track of the goal, like most of us do when beset by challenges, and you will feel adrift in a sea of confusion; unable to set a course or make headway. It ultimately is our choice how we face each day.
I know it helps me to stay more focused on happiness when I am surrounded by loving friends and family.  People who share my vision. 
     I had a goal of getting into medical school.  I took the MCATS  (medical admission tests).  I did average; scored 10 out of 15 in most subjects, except chemistry.  I got a 3....Ooops.  By some strange twist of fate I got an interview.  During the interview my score in chemistry came up.  The professor said, "this chemistry score seems a bit low."  My reply was that I have never had chemistry.  He said,"Well, thats a pretty good score then."  He made it clear that before the fall semester, if I was accepted, I would need to take the entire organic chemistry series, normally a nine month course, over the summer, in three months.
So my goal became to finish, and finish well, the entire year's worth of organic chemistry in three months.  I was focused,  It became a twelve to fourteen hour a day job; classes, labs, tests every two to three days.  I lived and breathed organic chemistry.  And,  I liked it.  Weird.  Consider this, how happy would our lives be if we put as much effort into being happy as we do obtaining other goals that don't bring us the same satisfaction?   Just a thought?  Namaste.