Book 135 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: FOCUS ON YOUR VALUES!

Book – When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Book Description: At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

Reflection:

Listen to the Omens!!!

I’m not sure what the universe is trying to tell me yet regarding this book, but it is trying to tell me something. My goal is to try and figure it out as I work through these thoughts as I type this reflection this morning.

I had been dreading reading this book since the first day I stumbled across it about a year and a half ago. I wanted to download it and start it about a dozen times, and I could never pull the trigger. I knew I was in for something that would be really hard and emotionally taxing. For reasons unknown, I finally felt compelled a few weeks ago to muster up the courage to pull this off my Anti-Library bookshelf and begin this journey with Paul, his wife Lucy, his daughter Cady, and the rest of his family.

This book took me almost a month to finish when it should have taken me 3 days. I listened to it as an audiobook and began this journey a few Sundays ago on my way to my weekly visit with Emilia at the cemetery. As I pulled up to her gravesite, I turned off the book and spent time with my daughter. When I got back in the car, I just couldn’t turn it back on. Paul had been talking about discovering his cancer at this stage of the book, and I knew that I was in for an emotional ride that I wasn’t mentally prepared for at this stage of the journey with him.

Normally, when I start a book, I go straight through until it is finished. The next morning, I started the audiobook again and I just couldn’t. I turned it off immediately and I downloaded like 5 other books to quickly begin anything but this book.

I finished book after book while putting this one off until I finally mustered up the courage to dive a little deeper a few weekends later and got through the first 1/3rd of the book. After a quick hour listening…I was spent and didn’t know when or if I could ever finish this book. Finally, this past weekend, I said to myself, “We’re finishing this thing” and I dove in headfirst to really take this journey with Paul, come what may.

It was fitting that I finished this book yesterday morning (3/14/2022) as I ran on the treadmill crying my eyes out listening to Paul talk about his newborn daughter Cady, his final few months as the cancer slowly took more and more from him, and hear his wife Lucy read the last 40 minutes as she told the story of Paul’s final few days when he could no longer write. I say it was fitting because today just so happens to be the 2cd birthday of my sweet Emilia (3/15/2022). I don’t know how that happened, but like always, Emilia and the universe seem to have their hands all over this one. I’ve come to expect nothing less from them at this point in my life.

I think I got the lesson Emilia!!! Thank you for the reminder...

Every once in a while, Paul would naturally revert to the life he knew before his cancer of trying to be a doctor, thinking in statistics and probabilities about his diagnosis, and trying to realistically plan out what was feasible for the time he had left on this Earth. When he did this, his oncologist, Emma, would remind him to not worry about all of that and to “Focus on your values!”

FOCUS ON YOUR VALUES!!!

This is the same reminder I hear from Emilia each and every day as when we set out to try and live for 2 and navigate this world simultaneously together and apart. It is the ultimate reminder that values are all we have and all we need to live a life filled with purpose and meaning no matter how much, or little, time we have physically have together in this world.

This whole year of magical learning adventure, and the rest of my life, is all about Living for 2 for Emilia. It is about imagining living a life together even though we can’t physically be next to each other in this world. It is about me living and expressing our shared values she taught me each and every day in as much as I can with her.

When I was running and listening to this book on the treadmill yesterday, in my mind, I was running with Emilia and we were hearing Paul’s story together. We were crying together as we listened to him describe the pain and suffering of slowly watching his body fail and his dreams of the life he imagined with his wife and daughter coming to an abrupt end. This morning, Emilia and I are typing these exact words together and thinking through what we learned from Paul’s story and how we apply this to our life going forward.

Just like Paul is still with his daughter Cady and his wife Lucy in all they do, Emilia will always be with me in all I do as well as long as I continue to focus on the values she taught me!

I love you Emilia! Happy Second Birthday Sweetheart!

Question: How can you better focus on your values today?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi