Enjoy Every Sandwich

I haven't spent much time on the computer lately because I was spending too much time on the computer.  No, I wasn't actually doing anything on the computer, I was just watching it sit and lock up and restart.  I can't complain too much, the computer I was using was from 2003.  However, this week while helping a friend with a project, and sitting at the computer for literally an hour while it processed the request I was asking of it, I said enough was enough.  After begging and pleading with my wife, I now have a brand new computer that actually turns on when you turn it on, and does what you ask it to do.  I bought it yesterday and upon cleaning out the old computer and setting up my new one, I decided to check the speed of the thing by watching some video content that I have missed over the years.  Not porn, because I make sure not to miss that, just everything from a Simpson's episode I missed last month to Warren Zevon's last appearance on David Letterman a few years back.

At my support group meeting two weeks ago, we discussed how all of us in the group, after having the inarguably life changing cancer diagnosis, all have adopted a more living-in-the-moment attitude.  We were not talking about living your life like an anarchist, we were talking about living without regrets.  When people say they live their life without regrets, they tend to mean that they stand by the decisions they made in their life, be them good or bad, because even bad decisions can be learning experiences.  However, the living without regrets that we were referring to, is all of the times in our lives we have passed on an opportunity or not followed a dream for trivial reasons.  They can be life decisions or just fun times we passed up with friends.  Whether it be regretting not going to that concert with your buddy, or not having the opportunity to say "bye" to someone before it was too late, or not marrying Christie Turlington, there are several decisions in all of our lives we wish we could change or get that opportunity back.

Still unemployed, I have recently reevaluated my life and my career path.  My latest career path started when I was volunteering while helping out my hometown during the floods along the Mississippi River.  I loved working side by side with people to sandbag in an effort to save their house, business, church, or just the town in general.  I later managed to get into the disaster business and found that in the disaster business, you don't really get to help those individuals anymore.  I got more and more immersed in my job, working longer and weirder hours, seeing the people I wanted to help less and less.  I got to teach disaster preparedness to people, which I loved, but my job was asking me to take a more supervisory role on that as well and have volunteers do that.  When you work a job you love and you work long hours, the years go by, the job changes, and before you know it, the job you once loved, is no longer the same job, and you just love it out of habit.  It dawned on me recently, that is what happened to me.

After the things that have happened in my life lately, I have analyzed what I enjoy.  When you are faced with life altering events, you realize a job can be something you love doing and are willing to sacrifice for, something you hate doing, but it pays so much it gives you the opportunity to spend that money on your family enriching your life that way, for a lucky few like musicians and porn stars it could be a job that you both love and pays a lot, or it can be a job you hate, doesn't pay that well, and isn't rewarding.  After talking with my wife, we both agreed that in this stage of our lives, I should look for either a job I really, really enjoy, a job that I maybe don't enjoy and doesn't pay much but allows me a lot of time with my family, or a job that pays ridiculous money that when I do get sometime off I can afford to jet off to Walt Disney World or buy expensive guitars (she says spend the money on the family, but that's not how I processed it in my mind).  Just like we talked in my group, live in the moment, make sure your job is worth it to you, either monetarily or sense of accomplishment.

But we weren't just talking about jobs in my group.  We were talking about everything in life, meeting that friend for lunch, dropping an e-mail to a sick friend, taking that trip, learning that skill you have always wanted, whatever.  I wish I could live a week in Cinderella's Castle at Walt Disney World, get right out of bed walk straight to the Jungle Cruise and shoot an elephant in my PJs (how he got in my pajamas I'll never know...ya gotta love Groucho!).  That is a trip that would probably bankrupt me and put a huge financial strain on my family for many years to come.  That is not the type of thing we were talking about.  However, for years my wife and I have dreamed of taking a trip out west, just driving and seeing the sights this country has to offer.  That trip, I have no doubt we will take in the coming years when we are physically and financially able to go.  For years, I have begged my parents to come to Florida with us.  We went as a family one time and had a great experience.  That was sixteen years ago.  My wife and I are able to visit Florida frequently on a fairly cheap budget.  I have invited my parents many times and offered many ways to help facilitate their travel down there.  Time after time we are turned down and have basically heard from them that they will never travel that far again.  It is something that really saddens me, especially since my cancer diagnosis.  We don't know when God may call any of us back home.  We don't know how much time we have with each other.  Instead of just showing my parents photos and telling them what a great time we have in Florida, we would like to take them, show them, experience it with them (until they get tired and grumpy like old people tend to do, then we will lock them in a bathroom or something).  I think what saddens me is not so much the repeated declines of our previous offers, but how they say they don't ever think they will make a trip like that again.  I was taken to Disney Parks the first time by my family and I was kind of hoping that one day they would be there to experience it with their grandchild.  Who knows, maybe they will be more adventurous by the time that opportunity rolls around, or at least senile enough that we can tell them we are taking them to Big Lots or something and Big Lots has a new one thousand mile long parking lot.

When Warren Zevon made his final appearance on David Letterman, he was well aware that he was dying from Mesothelioma.  He knew it was the last time he would be on there.  He knew that the breath that he drew to sing songs many people loved was being stolen more and more by the cancer filling his lungs.  Warren had a great attitude and repeated many times through his dying days "Enjoy every sandwich."  It may sound stupid and simple, but for anyone that has looked at a doctor waiting to hear a success rate or a chance of survivability we know exactly what he means.  Do what you enjoy.  Don't waste your time on things you don't enjoy.  If you do have to do things you don't enjoy, make sure it's worth it in the end.  Learn to love the gifts you are given in your life, the big ones and the little ones.  Enjoy every sandwich.  With that said, I am sore from typing and hungry for a sandwich, so it's time to get off of here.