I’ve been having this conversation a few times with my family as of late, most notably with my teenagers. Teenagers are at a transformation point in their lives, so it can be pretty easy to have conversations like this. But, I think it’s an interesting question for everyone.
What kind of person do you want to be?
When I was working and walking around the job, I would be constantly thinking. I had a complex job and being a supervisor, it was part of my job to figure things out and set up people with tasks for the day. Come to my knowledge, I tend to frown when I’m thinking.
“Why are you grumpy all the time”, someone asked me.
“What??? I’m not grumpy”, I replied.
“You walk around frowning a lot”.
“I do? I’m just thinking”.
Without my knowledge, I had become a grumpy person and that’s not somebody I want to be. I started consciously walking around with a smile on my face and all of a sudden I wasn’t a grumpy person anymore (although, I’m sure I still frown think from time to time).
We had a new neighbor move into the neighborhood last year, a few houses down from us. The husband (I’ll call him Fred for this story) and his wife are probably in their 30s and they just had their first child. We are fortunate to live at the end of a quiet street and all of our neighbors have multiple children, ages between 4-17. The road dead ends, so it’s a safe and perfect place for children to play.
Shortly after Fred moved in, he started grumbling and fighting with his neighbors on either side of his house about things he was unhappy with about their houses and yards. Fred also seems to like his drink too much at times and caused some late night disturbances with the neighbors across from him. As you can tell, he was quickly making friends.
After they had their baby, as any parent could tell you, the beginning months can be a challenge, especially for first time parents. Their baby is sleeping or not sleeping at all hours of the day. Fred has decided the whole neighborhood has to be quiet while the baby is sleeping during the day, especially all the neighborhood children playing outside. He has taken it upon himself to come out and yell at the kids for playing, which of course isn’t going down too well with the rest of us.
What about the garbage trucks collecting garbage? Delivery people? People cutting grass? Umm, ok….seems ludicrous to me. I get if the kids were being excessively noisy or obnoxious, but they aren’t actually being that loud.
Of course, after hearing about this man yelling at my son, I wanted to march down to his house and tell him a thing or two (that happened, but not by me). But then the thought came into my head, does he realize that he is the neighbor in the neighborhood that everyone hates? (I don’t hate him, I actually appreciate the learning experience).
It would seem to be more constructive to ask him if this who he wants to be (and to tell him about white noise machines, like fans or air purifiers 😜). Maybe he doesn’t know the neighbors despise him and are praying for him to sell his house and move out. I’m sure there is more to Fred than I know, but to the neighborhood, he’s the neighborhood jerk. I doubt that is who he would like to be.
I recently watch a show on Netflix called Mission Joy- Finding happiness in troubled times. It was about the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, their lives, challenges and why they are joyous despite having every reason to be bitter and be a complainer. It was a conscious decision not to be that way and live life joyously and spread that joy. I highly recommend the show. It was just a treat to watch those two interact, laugh and be brothers despite their religious differences.
The main conversation I was having with my children, was about complainers. Complainers are interesting people, because they always can find something to complain about, and it usually doesn’t take long for them to start once a conversation starts.
One of my kids was in the living room, and they were complaining about this and they were complaining about that. Finally, I had enough and exploded out, “why don’t you do something about what you’re complaining about instead of complaining about it”. (Dex might have had something to do with my explosion).
Complaining does nothing constructive, other than driving everyone around you crazy and not wanting to be around you. If something bothers you, do something about it. A person could spend more time and energy complaining about something than it actually takes to rectify the situation. (Of course, by my previous example, there are better or worse ways of doing something about things).
My wife and I were talking about complainers and she poised the question, “Do complainers, know they are complainers?” Briefly I thought and said “I don’t think they do”. I think what people who complain excessively are after, is attention.
I asked my children, “Do you want to be a person who stays in one place and just complains about everything in their lives or do you want to be a person who takes the lead, overcomes things and can change the world around them? Who do you want to be?”
Toxic people come up when you are dealing with cancer, more specifically, not being around toxic people when you are trying to recover from cancer. I do believe that, that’s completely valid and good advice. Toxic people are hard to be around when you’re healthy.
Then the thought occurred to me, what about toxic patients?
“God, why won’t this guy just die already!”
Certainly, anyone who has a chronic illness has a good excuse to complain. But to the point, where everyone is sick of you? One of my goals is not to become a person like that. That’s not who I want to be.
Early on in my cancer journey, about three years ago now, I went to India for about a month for Panchakarma treatment. The treatment is essentially purging your toxins (which can include mental toxins) and having your reset button pressed. I had just gone through the wringer with chemo and still having the mental struggles that come with cancer.
I wasn’t able to get a room at the clinic in India, so I rented a room a short distance away and took a tuk tuk back and forth. On the tuk tuk trip, sometimes I would see a crippled man on the corner, shirtless with a ragged cloth around his lower half. It looked like his legs had never worked from birth. He would be sitting on the ground, on his torso, with his skinny twisted legs folded behind him for probably hours.
The image of him is burned into my mind. From my point of view, I had been dealt a bit of a bum hand with myeloma. BAM, some perspective had just slapped me upside the head. What do I have to complain about? All of a sudden, I knew I had and will continue to have, a better and less challenging life than this person, myeloma and all. From now on, when ever I feel like complaining about things, an image of this man with his twisted legs, breathing in tuk tuk exhaust, pops into my head to remind me to be grateful for what I have.
I met a number of amazing people on that trip to India. Two that stand out in my mind were a Buddhist Lama and his interpreter monk. I have been blessed to have met and spent time with some very holy people in my life. These people have a presence about them and just being in the same room as them, you know that you are in the presence of someone really special. This Buddhist Lama is one of those people. But, this particular little story is about his interpreter monk.
She (yes, it’s a she, I generally think of monks as men) was born with a rare heart condition. She was very small and weak as a child and was always getting sick, because of it. She was so sick and weak one time she couldn’t get out of bed for months. She kept taking Tibetan herbs and praying, and she eventually got stronger and better enough to get up and go on with life, but still had this heart condition. She saw western medical doctors and had multiple heart surgeries, but the condition is not curable. Her heart can stop beating at any moment and she will die.
I did not know any of this when I first met her. She has one of the best, brightest smiles, that I’ve ever met and she is always smiling. How could this person exist, who is so full of life and happiness, literally have their heart stop beating at any moment? Shouldn’t she be grumpy, gloomy and miserable? Curled up in their bed, crying? She was the complete opposite!
Again, what do I have to complain about? She is a person who I would like to be like. She chose to be this happy, amazing person and not be consumed by what her body is doing. She has heart pains and challenges but sloughs it off, speaks many languages and be an translator for a important Lama. We had many conversations about life in the monastery, food and movies (she’s a big movie lover).
People will either show you who you want to be or who you don’t want to be. Things aren’t always easy, adversity comes in all forms, and everyone has it at points in their lives. Having cancer is hard. Having chemotherapy is hard.
Do I have the right to complain? Yes, I probably do. Do I want to? No, I don’t. Do I want to be afraid of cancer, afraid of it coming back, grumpy, a jerk, and someone that people don’t want to be around? No, I don’t. Anybody can justify doing/being anything.
Do I want to be happy and smile in the face of adversity, be a good person, a good example for my children and lead the way? Yes, I do. It’s who I want to be. It is my choice. Everyone has that choice. It is up to all of us to decide who that person is.
Who do you want to be?
Carrots Over Cancer 