photo credit pixabay.com
I mentioned in Tuesday’s post that I’d be sharing a number of thoughts garnered last week’s funeral for Gil Johnson, the father of my dear friend Nancy. The title of this post is one of them, apparently a favorite Gil aphorism.
This is a helpful, useful statement because it’s the answer to the questions, “How did I get myself into this?” “How could this have happened to me?” “Why me?” So it’s a lens onto the past as you look back on the direction your life has taken. And it’s a telescope into the future. Where do I want to be by the end of today? This week? The summer? I will end up where my decisions take me.
“Hey, wait a minute!” you may say. “I didn’t get to choose what happened to me. You are being completely unfair, Ms. Intentional Happiness. It’s completely off base to tell me that I’m in charge of my own destiny. A truck could hit me while I’m on the way to the grocery store this afternoon and I’d have no way to stop that event from happening.”
Right. It could. And while I can say, well, but you chose to be on the road at that particular time, and that would be true, my saying that wouldn’t absolve the speeding truck driver who ran the red light. He made his decisions, however awful they were, and you made yours, however mundane or practical they were, and the two sets of decisions intersected. And the outcome of the accident is pretty much beyond your control. (Although it’s fair to ask–Did you choose not to take your Honda in for the airbag replacement under the terms of the recall that you got about a dozen notices for? Did you get your brakes fixed when they started giving you the wear signal? Were you paying attention to the traffic around you or fiddling with your phone?) How you decide to respond to it is not. (And what if you’re killed on the spot? Well, that’s a whole other issue. Then a prior decision will determine your eternal destiny.)
I know I’ve written extensively about my son’s about with cancer. He absolutely did not choose to get this horrible disease. And his treatment choices were made by us, his parents, and eventually by his oncologist. Through all of that time, though, he had his own choices to make. He chose to keep going in school. He chose to do his work. He chose to cooperate with the doctors and nurses. He chose to make an effort to interact with his many visitors. On and on. All of those decisions helped to put him where he is today, cancer free and just graduated from college. Now he’s making choices about what path to pursue next.
Last night we watched the story of another cancer survivor, Grant Achatz, the head chef of the restaurant Alinea who in 2007 developed mouth cancer. By the time he finally got a diagnosis he was in Stage IVB, the very last stage. He was told by his doctor that he’d have to have his tongue, part of his jaw, and the sides of his neck removed, and then he’d have only a 30% chance of survival. He chose not to have that treatment. It didn’t seem like a viable option; why should he put himself through disfiguring surgery when the chances of survival were so low? He resigned himself to death. Then someone heard about his situation and contacted the University of Chicago Medical Center. They were looking for participants to be in an experimental treatment protocol. Would Achatz be willing to participate? The new treatment required no surgery. Achatz signed on. The radiation caused the complete shedding of all surface cells from his nose down to his collarbone, including . . . his taste buds. For months he could taste nothing, but every day the restaurant was open he was in the kitchen, first having done the initial chemo for the day, then coming in for prep, then going in for his second chemo, then coming in for the dinner service. And one day he took a drink of well-sugared coffee and realized that it tasted sweet. Gradually his taste came back. Now the restaurant has been completely renovated after a four-month shutdown earlier this year, and is apparently doing better than ever. (I can’t stand the kind of food served there–fussy and overpriced–but that’s not the issue. And I’ll never have to worry about it, since I couldn’t afford to eat there anyway.)
I’m going to close with the famous quotation from Victor Frankl about choice:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” (From Man’s Search for Meaning. I need to read this book instead of just getting quotes off the internet from it.)
So much more to say on this subject!