When does it start to feel good

I saw a programme on TV tonight where the chap was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and inevitably died.  IT was a moving piece of drama and there were a couple of poignant moments in it and of course a couple of times I felt a little sad.  You relate such things directly to your own experiences and of course, with dad not being well and my own brush with cancer it is all very real and very much in my focus.


This weekend I haven't juiced or in fact followed any protocols other than not eating a lot :-)  I'd run out of vegetables (happily I have some now) and I was up late on Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday my mate Flocky Bicep, freshly returned from NZ turned up and we have breakfast at Costa with a pastry thrown in for good measure so I had a treat on Saturday morning and today I had some poached eggs rather than my normal FOCC.  That I can restart tomorrow and my juicing too.  I must then find out where the new batteries are so I can load up my BP monitor with those and to start to take readings of my blood pressure.


Work as previous posts show is a concern but probably not as bad as I thought it would be.  In a way I'm furious at the establishment for not providing opportunities for people to get funding and for the Ostrich style approach to venture that the UK appears to foster.  Those who suggest that they are the risk takers and the builders and disrupters of tomorrow are as adventurous as the high street banks.  It appears to me to be all wind and not much else.


So when does it start to feel good?  When do I start to feel good that 5 years have gone by and that bladder cancer is fading away a bit (of course I have to have a CT Scan and all that good stuff too and regular check ups).  When do I feel good about "my lot".  In reality I should feel good right now.  I don't live in abject poverty, I have a roof over my head and my children are at university.  We have food on the table and two cars on the drive.  We have enough money to live on and those blessings should be treasured.  It is difficult as a westerner to sometimes actually look at these things and realise how well off we actually are.  I spoke to one of my colleagues about someone complaining that they were poor as the definition in this country is not one you would recognise for example in some places in Africa.  What we see as poor is a thousands of times greater than someone there could ever attain.


I feel at the cross roads again, having spent 2 years on this project and 2 years beforehand at the charity a year before that I was involved in another start up that didn't work out and I realise that the last time I did any work that was well paid was when I was diagnosed with bladder cancer in the first place.  Of all the experiences I've had since then, I wonder how much having (or having had) bladder cancer has influenced what I have done and what I may do in the future.  For example, I don't fancy a job back in the cut and thrust of the financial services business as I don't want to deal with the stress that it would inevitably bring with it nor do I envy or want to participate in the lifestyle that I had in those times.  The money was great but the hours and damage to my body are no longer sustainable.  Then there was the charity which I enjoyed but after I had built the frameworks that were necessary the day to day running (business as usual) was too mundane for me, I build things, I don't operate them.


So I am left wondering what I ought to consider doing in the future and in fact I have plenty of time to consider this.  I fancy many things and I had a vision of using my family history skills to build a business based on that, write a few books, do some speaking engagements and so on.  Or I could build an internet business I suppose or do some sort of consultancy work.  Whatever I decide to do, it just needs to be interesting enough to engage me and to pay the bills although I'd like it to pay more so I could boost my pension.  But there again money isn't everything.  I've even thought about just packing up, selling the place and going off somewhere to start again doing something (not sure what) miles away from London and the noise and hassle and yet, would I really leave my friends and would I disadvantage the children's future by doing so?


I don't know when it starts to feel good but I think I am beginning to start the process of becoming comfortable with who I am.  I need to do that first to begin to make progress elsewhere.