A man is slowly walking down the street, his head is facing down, his back is bent forward and he is seemingly unaware of anything but the sidewalk beneath his feet. There are people walking toward him and behind him but he plods along neither greeting nor stopping for anyone. If I were to ask you how this man is likely to be feeling, what would your response be?
I have used this scenario over and over again and nine times out of ten, people tell me that the man is depressed or sad. “What is the evidence for this?” I ask. People answer, “His head is facing down and he’s not looking at anyone. Plus he’s walking very slowly and not particularly aware of his surroundings.”
“On the contrary,” I reply. He’s actually very excited. His head is down and his back is bent forward because last month as he was walking down the same busy street he found a lottery ticket. Nobody claimed the ticket and he won a million dollars. He thinks that if he was lucky once, he could get lucky again. He may be greedy but he’s certainly neither sad nor depressed, merely dedicated to his task. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes golden moments exist in the midst of trial and tribulation and sometimes they arise in the midst of success and joy. In my experience, the most golden moments are those when life has thrown me lemons and I’ve squeezed all the juice out of them that I can. For me, to share that juice with others, it just doesn’t get any better than that!
Ten and a half years ago I was diagnosed with a very lethal form of cancer. Because ovarian cancer is particularly hard to detect in its early stages most women die of this disease. I was lucky to have experienced several particularly searing pains that allowed the cancer to be treated relatively early in its development.
During my treatment, I decided that there was no point in having a tragedy if I couldn’t make it work for me. Read the rest of this entry »