Today, I went Christmas shopping with my family. My reconnaissance browsing earlier in the week set the stage for today's military-like execution of the purchase of almost all my remaining Christmas gifts. Through a combination of in-store browsing and online surfing, I knew what I wanted, where I could find it, and what I was going to pay. This made for a relatively stress-free shopping experience despite the crowds in some of the stores we visited today. I'm looking forward to a quieter day tomorrow, when the focus will be on food.

Yesterday, a friend shared with me that she had assembled and mailed each of her team members a Box of Sunshine. This was a new concept for me, so I googled "what is a box of sunshine?" and got this response: "A box of sunshine is a thoughtful care package that typically includes only gifts that are yellow. And, it's perfect for lots of occasions! A little themed box works like magic for cheering up low spirits and for sending well wishes to the sick. It's a happy surprise when sent for a birthday or even just because."

"When you stand and share your story in an empowering way, your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else."

~ Iyanla Vanzant

I always say that walking is magical. For me, it clears the mind better than just about any activity. I can recall one summer night going for a long walk alone. I walked until I had resolved the issue I was struggling with. An hour from home, I stopped and, a bit like Forrest Gump, turned around and walked back home. It's been said that if you can't change a situation, change how you think about the situation. It worked wonders that night. Walking is also a terrific way to be present with another person. Electronic distractions are minimized. Talking is one of the few things you can do while walking. And silence feels natural.

When I returned home this afternoon...I was mesmerized by the beauty of our Christmas tree. Instead of tackling the next thing on my to-do list, I sat down in the living room with Chris and stared at the lights. The next thing I knew, we were whiling away the afternoon. We chatted. We had a snack. We played the online Reader's Digest crossword puzzle.... What was so remarkable about this afternoon is that we didn't set out to create it. We hadn't made a date. We hadn't planned to spend a few hours in each other's company. In fact, had I done what I normally do—cleaning up, working on my blog, preparing dinner—it might never have happened at all. Slowing down was the magical first step in spending a pleasant afternoon with someone I love.

Ben Coyle-Larner (a rapper who performs under the name Loyle Carner) started cooking at the age of seven. Like the students enrolled in the cooking school he co-founded, Coyle-Larner has ADHD and found that making meals helped with his condition. Five years ago, he teamed up with social enterprise the Goma Collective to set up the Chilli Con Carner summer school. Based in London, England, the school teaches teens with ADHD how to cook. In the process, it gives them a "taste of sweet success"—a healthy alternative to the near-constant "diet of failure and anxiety" they're accustomed to. Goma’s Mikey Krzyzanowski explains what the students get out of the program: "They get factual praise—they’re tasting the food and they know it’s good.... We tell them they’ve done something great and they can taste for themselves that we really mean it. It undoes loads of the pain and negative wiring that some of their schooling and even the people around them have been subjecting them to for a long time."

"The investigators at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere had also observed that when nurses were given a chance to say their names and mention concerns at the beginning of a case, they were more likely to note problems and offer solutions. The researchers called it an 'activation phenomenon.' Giving people a chance to say something at the start seemed to activate their sense of participation and responsibility and their willingness to speak up."

~ Dr. Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

"Do not do more today that you can completely recover from by tomorrow"

~ Greg McKeown, Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most

Finally, Christmas morning arrived, and the mystery gift was unwrapped. It was, indeed, a bag of balls. Only after my mother dispatched one of my brothers to her bedroom closet to fetch the rest of the gift was the puzzle solved. It was a mini pool table. Wrapping only part of the gift was a clever trick by my mom to confuse us—or perhaps she just couldn't be bothered wrapping a huge box.

"It is baffling how random and cruel cancer is but I know more people who have survived and thrived than who haven’t.... Six people including you and all have bounced back!!!"

~ Jenesis reader

Over time, the 5¼" floppy disks gave way to 3½" floppies. Given that I embraced computer technology, colleagues would often ask me for guidance. On one occasion, I helped a coworker save a file to her floppy disk using the file name "sex sex". OK, not very mature, but I thought it was a harmless joke. The only problem was that no matter what she did, she couldn’t rename the file or even delete it. She lived in fear that someone would discover her "sex sex" file and wonder what was in it. It was an early lesson in the perils of goofing around with technology.

The moral of the story is this: sharing your experience, even if it's to a tiny audience, makes a difference—in the moment and in the months or years that follow. Your taking your situation one day at a time encourages others to do the same. Your seeing not just the scary bits but also the inspiring bits, such as the incredible doctors, nurses and technicians working in oncology, gives others inspiration to see the positives along the way. And your graduating from the [cancer queue] and living a life enriched with wisdom, love and gratitude gives others hope that they, too, will follow in your footsteps and the footsteps of countless others who are thriving post-cancer.

"If you wait until you feel ready to take on a new challenge, you might never pursue it at all. Few people wake up suddenly feeling prepared to lead or create. They become prepared by taking the leap anyway. Our greatest regrets are not our failures, but our failures to try."

~ Adam Grant

The point of statements like these ["Happy always comes back" and "Every storm runs out of rain"] is not to diminish or ignore negative emotions. It sucks when something we've gotten used to is suddenly taken away. It's understandable that we might worry that an uncomfortable situation will persist. It's normal, when we receive bad news, to wonder whether there's another shoe to drop. But it's also easy to let negative emotions take over. When that happens, mantras like these can help us avoid panicking and focusing on the worst-case scenario. They can remind us that we've gotten through tough circumstances in the past and will do so again. And they can help us hold on until happy comes back or the storm runs out of rain.