“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”
Viktor Frankl
This past August, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer that affects plasma cells in the bone marrow. In multiple myeloma, these plasma cells become cancerous, causing tumors, kidney damage, bone destruction and impaired immune function. There is no cure for multiple myeloma, but recent advances in its treatment have allowed many patients to live long-term with the disease.
My cancer diagnosis did not come easy. For weeks, I walked around with five breaks and fractures in my lower back. I was in excruciating pain and limited in my ability to walk and move. I was also severely anemic and had passed out twice over the summer; both those times landed me in the ER, needing a blood transfusion. As ominous as these warnings were, I continued to press forward as if everything were normal until, on August 10th, with a fever of a 103.3 and my heart rate at a dangerously high 150 (a normal range is 60 - 100 beats per minute), I was forced to check myself into the ER.
In the hospital, I immediately began playing doctor and diagnosed myself as having some type of infection, so you can imagine my shock and disbelief when the doctor walked into my ICU room to tell me that they had found no infections or blood clots. Whew! "But wait, Mr. Papadopoulos, you have a series of black lesions in your lower back that indicate some type of cancer." What? Did he just say CANCER? With those words, my life would be forever changed.
Prior to my cancer diagnosis, I had led a life filled with extreme busyness, running from one new project and business opportunity to the next without taking a breath, always saying yes, and always sweating the small stuff. Mind you, as I pushed myself relentlessly, I was always left with the feeling that it was never enough... I was never enough... which led me to push on even more.
Deeply driving me was the need to be perfect, the need to be known as an expert, the need to be acknowledged as smart and talented. This drive had me taking on everything by myself to ensure my work and public image, even my character, were unassailable. When I shared with my therapist this life I had been living, she responded, "It's no wonder that your back broke. Look at how much you were carrying by yourself." I really felt my life in that moment -- I had been carrying the weight of the world.
While I love the work that I do with a passion and gain so much energy from it (I do transformational work in the areas of leadership, culture, organizational development and men's work), I was compelled to sit with my therapist's observation about how I'd "broken my back" striving to prove myself by taking on more and more on my own. As I reflected on how I had been living my life, it became clear to me that much of what I had done was driven from a place of scarcity, the unconscious feeling that I wasn't enough, that I had to keep doing more in order to be worthy and seen as an authority.
I also realized that my upbringing had inadvertently instilled in me this feeling of never being enough. I am the first-born son of an immigrant family, where it was considered a badge of honor to be consumed by the suffering and struggles of life. My immigrant parents viewed the world as an unsafe place that wasn't to be trusted. This immigrant mindset pushed me to prove myself even more in order to fit in and feel like I belonged. And yet, for all my efforts at belonging, I still felt fundamentally alone and needing to take on the world by myself.
That's a lot I had been carrying for 54 years. So, yes, my back finally gave out in mid-August.
As I continued to reflect on my cancer and what had brought me here, a friend asked me, "Why do you want to live?" At first, I was offended by his question. I thought it was extremely insensitive of him to ask me this as I was literally fighting for my life. But he invited me to sit with the question - not simply hear it - but really sit with it. Of course, I want to live, I thought, there's so much to live for.
Sitting with his question some more, I recalled Viktor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning." Frankl was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps and, in his book, he outlines the role HOPE played with the people who survived the camps and those who did not. Simply put, those who had HOPE, those who believed there was a reason to live and who gave themselves a reason to look to the future were the ones who survived. The ones who lost hope did not.
Yes, I want to live. But WHY? What is my HOPE? (I invite you to join me in this question as this is an ongoing conversation that needs constant tending to by all of us.) I spent the next week with this inquiry. What do I HOPE to do next... what do I HOPE to create and contribute as I live out the next phase of my life?
Here's my answer, my HOPE....
I want to live a life filled and surrounded by joy, peace within myself, contribution, connection and love. I purposefully choose these ways of being (which have often eluded me) so that they will serve as my guiding principles for the choices I make moving forward. I'm choosing these ways, because I believe they will best help me make a difference in the world while also filling me up with an overflowing sense of my own worthiness, allowing me to appreciate everything that I have to offer the world during this brief lifetime.
Love, connection and contribution mean doing for others, but I've also humbly come to understand that they also mean allowing others to do for me. Love and connection mean that I am not alone. I am part of something much larger than myself. Contribution means I don't always have to carry and support everyone; I can allow others to help and support me, which can actually serve as a gift to them.
The opposite of scarcity is abundance. Abundance comes from knowing I am part of a community, I am more than enough as I am, and I am not alone. Abundance allows for healthy partnerships, collaboration, and ease and fun in getting things done. Peace and joy come from accepting myself wholly and fully, from not needing to prove myself to others (I don't have to do more to have value), from allowing others to lift me up. Also, by choosing the person I want to BE for the world, it will allow me to stop sweating the small stuff and getting "distracted" by unhealthy situations and people.
I'm ready to let go of my immigrant story about life's struggles and not belonging. I'm ready to let go of the disempowering conversation that has guided most of my life decisions. Instead, I'm ready to choose the peace and joy that life has to offer when we come together in love, connection and contribution.
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Nicholaos "Coach Nick" Papadopoulos is an executive coach, facilitator, speaker and author on topics related to personal transformation, inclusive leadership, culture and engagement, and men's work. You can find out more about Coach Nick and connect with him at www.coachnick.com.