E - Enthusiasm To Enjoy Life

 

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm. 

Aldous Huxley

Children overcome cancer easier than adults. My doctor said, “It is because of their enthusiasm to live and be happy”. Whatever you do with half heart is never done perfectly, so how can we expect life to be perfect when we live it half-heartedly, surviving through each day as though it is a burden on us. 

Fighting cancer is tough, but never let it steal your enthusiasm for life. I had lost my enthusiasm for life before cancer woke me up reminding me that “Life is too short to spend in regrets”. I picked myself up with enthusiasm after cancer, and lived life fully. My best memories mostly belong to my post cancer era. 

I learned to enjoy life. Initially I was very conscious about the food I eat, about exercising and many other healthy habits. Somehow, fighting cancer, I learned to enjoy everyday. The side effect of this change was weight gain, but despite being heavy, I was very happy and jovial with my life. 

There have been people who tell  me, “Come on, no one can be happy because they got cancer”. That is the wrong message they get from what I am saying. I was not happy because I got cancer, I learned the value of being enthusiastic and enjoying life despite going through cancer. I learned to value happiness. It slowly started to seep in through my everyday life, in every little activity I did, like you can see in the picture below.  

My enthusiasm encouraged me to take up studies and become a post-graduate, learn to swim, learn computers, learn to drive a scooter and do many things after my encounter with cancer. Today, when I look at the person I was before cancer, sometimes I cannot help myself from thanking the terrible disease for waking me up from the dullness I slipped into unknown to me. 

We all need to learn to live our lives enthusiastically, to feel the effervescence bubbling through our days. We need to look forward to tomorrow. My special needs daughter has a wonderful phrase that makes the world a lot better place to live in. She welcomes the morning with the phrase “Tomorrow has happened”... I just love hearing her say that since it fills me with positiveness.