[2020-09-04] Mission
It took me a week after my diagnosis of ovarian cancer to decide to step away from work. I continued to hold calls with my staff, to chair meetings and to approve communications documents, as I wasn't quite sure what I would do next. But after a few days of reflection and conversations with my family, I decided that I needed to pause my work—which was all-consuming—so that I could focus on my health.
Because I didn't want my world to become just about the disease, I adopted a new mission: wring every positive thing out of cancer, grow from the experience, and be an even brighter light in the world, both during and after treatment.
I wasn't as clear-minded in my mission from the very beginning as this would suggest. The articulation of my mission developed over a few weeks, as I wrote posts for this blog and responded to the many messages I had received.
In the little more than five weeks since my diagnosis, I have discovered a vast network of people who love, support and appreciate me. I have received many well wishes, gifts and compliments. Most importantly, I have learned the extent of my positive impact on others.
I am not unique in this, I'm sure. There's something about the uncertainty of cancer that leads people to reach out to those afflicted with the disease to let them know what they have meant to them.
That I have influenced people in the past brings me joy. That I continue to do so while dealing with cancer brings me an incredible sense of meaning and purpose.
Earlier this week, I was touched by the generosity of a friend and her colleagues who collected $300 for a donation to Ovarian Cancer Canada. And today, I was so pleased to receive photos from friends who participated in Wear Teal Day.
Yesterday, I was very happy to have a colleague reach out to me to say, "your messages and openness have inspired so many of us to take a different look at the important things in life."
As a senior executive, I know how easy it is to become caught up in the day's urgencies and seeming priorities. Everything feels ultra important. In the end, however, what we do will be forgotten long before how we made others feel.
I can't say that I had articulated a personal mission before this point. Retrospectively, I would say that my mission had been work hard, be nice and help others.
I'm still trying to be nice and to help others, but I've replaced working hard with healing. I know that the only way I'll be able to work hard—on whatever my future mission may be—and to help others is to allow myself to be taken care of now.
