Every once in awhile I have a lightbulb moment. Something gets mentioned in a completely different place in the space/time continuum, and I have a flash of brilliance. The comment gets made that brings up a point that I can connect to in a completely different fashion.
Like the Bill Watterson comic as the featured image of this post, everything is about an interpretation of what you want something to mean.
So, there I was….
I was listening to a new podcast that I had found. Dee Snider has a podcast called “I wanna talk” (its embeded at the bottom of this blog – 55 minutes long). If you don’t know who Dee Snider is, it probably means you aren’t paying enough attention to your rock/metal music, and probably had a horrible time as a teenager. Anyway, this particular episode talks specifically about getting your act together and just doing the things you want to do. He recounted a story about being between revenue streams, not sure what he was going to do for his next paycheque. He used the term “momentum”.
That struck me. It made sense.
Of course one of my staple podcasts is the MFCEO project, with Andy Frisella. This podcast spoke to how long you could brag about past achievements and success….he says you get 24 hours and I found that this concept that he was talking about, was nearly identical to the concept that Dee Snider mentioned. Andy’s point was that you can’t keep riding the wave of your last success, you need to look to the future in order to find the next opportunity to succeed. Its only 15 minutes long if you want to give it a listen. I interpreted that as the effort needed to maintain your momentum.
So, how does this fit with a cancer journey?
I have mentioned before that my wife and I had some substantial plans and options that were part of our future. We had some steps that we wanted to take towards my post military career, our retirement, and the things we wanted to do. In May of 2014, those plans got completely erased. The energy that was being put towards our future plans, ceased.
Full stop.
Do not pass go.
Do not collect $200
(Is it still $200 in current editions or has inflation impacted there too?).
So, here I am 5 years later, trying to regain some momentum in order to head towards my new future.
Using science, we hear statements such as “a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force”. That considers a cancer diagnosis as the outside force that put the brakes on my life. I had to stop and focus on that.
Then “a body at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force”. Spending 4 years at rest, while going through 5 surgeries, 27 treatments, innumerable scopes, scans, prods, and procedures, how does one find the “external force” to rebuild forward momentum?
There is a harsh reality here – the external force, doesn’t exist.
You need the desire to rebuild momentum, and give your life the energy needed to move towards a planned future.
One of the things to consider, is that the external force may be presented to you as an opportunity, that you need to work to achieve. That goal is what drives you to rebuild your momentum. This situation is reflective of my reality right now.
I have an opportunity that has been presented to me, I said yes.
As I should be in the “Retired On Active Duty” mode (yes its a movie quote), because the military has given me the day that I must be promoted to “Mr”. I know that I need to cross that finish line (date) at speed, with momentum, and inertia. That is part of the way that I can best prepare myself for success the day I hang up the uniform for the very last time, and move into whatever my new career will bring me.
I see this opportunity as exactly that – way more work than I probably need to do in the sunset of my career, and it will be more work to achieve it as I build up the momentum needed to operate at that level, but ……
It will be what gives me the structure in my life to achieve anything I want.
I am pretty happy about that.
There are a couple of interesting points here that I thought I would save for another post, discussing the career momentum that military officers need, and other factors that using the same consideration, can help people understand where they are going, and what they are doing. It also gave me more ideas for the future – like comparing the Sun Tsu/Clausewitz rules of warfare to dealing with Cancer, and life in general.
So, thanks for sticking with me this far. As always if this was an enjoyable and insightful read for you, please share this around to others.
I will have some really big updates planned as I map out my new world ideas for the future in my 100th blog post.
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Chumble Spuzz.
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