Challenge for You (like you need another one, right?) (Portland, Oregon - March 26, 2014)

After a positively grueling month at work, I sent the following email to several co-workers:

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Dear Undisclosed {Company-Name Omitted} Recipients, (there are many of you on this list, all receiving this for something you said to me, somewhat in confidence)

I would like to tell you a 100% true tale and then challenge you.

In the not distant past, I was diagnosed with cancer, had surgery, and spent six months undergoing chemotherapy and radiation.

A few short years later, I once again had cancer. The first surgery was six hours. Chemotherapy was far more grueling the second time around. And then the second surgery, of the eight required, was thirteen hours on the table. It was days before I could stand again.

It was weeks before I could comfortably walk about the house without being exhausted.

But slowly, as I recovered, I would take short walks, a few times a day. I would walk a couple houses up my street. After a few days, I could walk a few houses further up the street. Eventually, even though it often required a nap after, I was walking two miles (3km) a day.

At some point, I committed to myself to walking two miles a day outside and away. (Outside being easy for a California girl.) I would literally walk away from my home, walk away from concerns, walk away from reminders of going-ons (a doctor bill on the coffee table, pills on the night-side table, etc). I would look and really see my surrounding; I would see the flowers and the birds, notice interesting bumper stickers, or kids’ toys in yards.

Despite theoretically being very ill, I started feeling better than I ever had.

I decided I needed to commit to this as a life-style.

For the most part, I have.

But life does rear its ugly head and we get easily entrenched in it. We are all entrenched in work. We are all OVERLY entrenched in work.

I am hoping the most difficult part is past, and I think it is time to force this to be the case.

For me, that means reverting to my commitment of walking away, literally, by at least a mile, every day. It is not just the health of moving away from the computer, but the mental step away from the responsibility.

So, with that tale, I would like to challenge all of you too, to commit to both literally and mentally moving away from work for some time every day. Do something physical to get the blood moving. Do something mental where words like should, must, finish, do, etc, they are all banished from your thought stream.

It is time to re-establish your well-being, and remember you are ENTIRELY entitled to your well-being.

And thus, I challenge you.

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Stupid:  That we forget (to take care of ourselves).

Cool:  That we remember.