Tagged: health

Stories from my life: I am a survivor

Wikipedia - Cancer Survivor

I was waiting for the elevator and a seasoned black woman walked up to me. She was panting like she was in pain, so naturally I asked “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just finished with a spa treatment and it was more intense than I expected.”

We both got on the elevator to go to our destination and continued talking.

“I am a two-time cancer survivor so I sometimes get winded.” she explained.

“I’m glad that you are ok.” I said. “I don’t think I have survived anything” I joked with her.

“Oh I’m sure you have,” she said. “Life can throw some curve balls.”

“Yes it can I agreed.” I smiled and the bell rang that we were at her floor.

“Thanks for listening” she said.

“No problem.” I said. “Good luck!”

Sometimes all you have to do is show the tiniest bit of compassion and people respond to it like a thirsty man in a desert. I know how good it feels when people listen to me, so I want to share that with others.

Share

Reacting to stress-B.R.E.A.T.H principle

Set Fire To The Heavens

I deal with people who are stressed in their jobs. When I help a client, they are usually being pressured by someone else to do something and a computer problem stands in the way. So you have to be kind and patient. So to help remind myself I came up with the breath principle. I take a deep breath and go through a checklist.

B – Breath, slow deep breath in and out.

R – Relax

E – Enjoy the moment

A – Aware of how you feel/environment

T – Think if this is real or not

H- Hope (since this isn’t eternal.)

Share

Relax – Take it easy

Mika - Relax, Take It Easy -Re-Release-

One of the most challenging things in my life has been to develop a sense of balance. I often would do things to an extreme, and that never ended well.

As I have gotten more mature hopefully, I have learned that being relaxed is just as important as being tense and ready to respond. I can’t say that being tense has made me a better person.

It has made me more responsive and quickly able to leap into fixing a problem, but it is also true that a little more thought first would have worked better. So why do we do this?

I help people with computers and technology in general and people often say that they want to do things as efficiently as possible. I help them do that in small ways, but often they are not open to hear the larger ways to be efficient. I always ask if they are open to hearing another way of accomplishing the task that might be easier for them, but most people say “I’m comfortable with how I’m doing it now.” Ok. I respect that. You can’t force people to not waste time.

I think that part of the reason it is so hard to relax is the feeling that there is too much of life that we don’t want to pass us by. So we try to cram in as much as possible, and feel anxious when we realize all the things that we are missing. I know that in trying to just keep up with my small niche in technology is a challenging thing.

I think that to be successful in any field like medicine, technology or law you really have to dedicate your life to study. That is rewarding in its own way, but it leads to an imbalance of living.

For example, I spend a ton of time learning stuff about technology. That is fun, but it doesn’t give my other aspects of being a chance to grow. So I am just evaluating the amount of time I spend sharpening my technological skills. I think to be healthy and happy you have to be aware of what is happening inside of you, and not just let yourself get caught up in habits and your comfort zone.

I love playing video games and that is my major way to relax. Isn’t it strange that as beings who spend so much of our time sleeping we find it so hard to value being relaxed? We really are complex animals aren’t we?

Share