I recall an interesting conversation I had with my teacher and mentor Prof.Wig of Chandigarh.
It was about 28 years back, I was only 42 years of age, and Prof.Wig, my teacher and mentor, had just crossed 60 years and retired from government service and work with the World Health Organisation. His was a life of fulfillment and community service.
We were discussing about his life ahead.
Foolishly I said to him:
“ You must be a very relaxed and tension free person”
Prof.Wig, corrected me as follows:
“ Murthy, in life, every stage is a challenge. Life is a process of challenges and opportunities for growth”.
I recall this today,as we, persons diagnosed with cancer, face challenges of one type of or the other almost everuday.
Here are two writings that address this issue:
First is by Prof.Manoj Sharma.
It was my 55th birthday last week, so I got a little introspective having read something like this on the Internet, I processed it for my life, Thought you would like reading it:
Eleven things I have started realizing at 55
I am beginning to realize at 55…
… After loving myself all these years, I have started loving everyone around me.
… After running in the rat race all these years, I have started realizing that I am neither a rat nor is there any race.
… After thinking the world revolves around me all these years, I have started letting go.
… After aiming for perfection and correcting people when they were “wrong” all these years, I have started accepting things and people as they are.
… After penny-pinching all these years, I have started giving liberal tips, buying the best quality Organic food, wearing best clothes under limits and so on.
… After being impatient with slow speakers all these years, I have started enjoying the time they take to tell their stories.
… After having free-floating hostility and finding faults with everything all these years, I have started giving generous compliments and being thankful for everything.
… After being embarrassed by my emotions all these years, I have started believing that what I am is not my emotions.
… After maintaining a false ego all these years, I have started realizing that I am only a speck in the Universe.
… After running for external sources of happiness all these years, I have started realizing that happiness is internal.
… After believing that I have my whole life ahead of me all these years, I have started realizing that today is all that I may have.
… Manoj Sharma, MBBS, Ph.D., MCHES®Manoj http://www.jsums.edu/health/dr-manoj-sharma/ (Website)
The Second experience is from THE Hindu of November 26 2018, with a heading of ‘‘I have never felt so empowered!’ about Ms. Sudha Menon.
Here are highlights of the article.
Sudha Menon’s Fiesty at Fifty is about the author’s life as a 50 plus woman
Stepping away from writing books on inspirational people, this time, Sudha has written an inspirational story of her life and adventures about being a woman of 50 plus, titled Fiesty at Fifty.
“Fiesty at Fifty is completely different in every way from what I have written before,” she says, adding: “One part of me has been watching with great interest of women turning 50. There is this premium on being young, and that women over 40 are over the hill; that they generally disappear from mainstream society.” However, Sudha would like to break that myth.
“I have never felt so empowered as I do now.” For Sudha it is all about adopting the correct perspective. “You could either moan about the fine lines and grey hair, or choose to accept yourself as you are. Life is more worth living at 50,” she says adding: “I don’t know where my 30s and 40s went because I was so focussed on my career as a journalist. At 50, I am discovering my relationship with my family, friends and relatives anew. Whereas in my 20s and 40s I felt like I was on a treadmill to nowhere.”
What made her turn to writing books from journalism? “After 23 years in a job, you pretty much sleepwalk through it. After the 500th byline, you wonder what is new? Even if it is just a job what am I doing to leave something of lasting value?”
Fiesty at Fifty is a Pan Macmillan publication.
Living with cancer 
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