Yearly Archives: 2012

Throughout our lives we all regularly come to crossroads. Two paths lead off in differing directions and we have to try to peer into the distance and see which is best.

Sometime we choose the path most trodden, the path that will take us to the thing we can see most clearly on the horizon. Other times, emboldened by our curiosity, the path less take, more grassy and less well-marked. We may not be able to see where it will take us, but we’ll try it nonetheless.

So what do you do when you reach the end of the road not at a crossroads, but a simple ending of the path before you. What do you do when there is no apparent path to choose?

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This week has been filled with a lot of thinking and far too little sleeping as I try to work out what I’m doing with my life.

I’m not alone in pondering the big “what next”; plenty of people go through this every day and my fellow transplantee Victoria blogged about it just this week, but for some reason I’m still at a loss.

It wasn’t until I took a long drive with my wonderful fiancée K today that I truly understood what drives me and what I really and truly want to do with myself.

SEEING THE NEGATIVE
For me, my new life is all about making a different, about showing people just what an amazing gift transplant is and why everyone should be signed up to the organ donor register in whatever country they call their home.

But I also realised that I’m currently driven my negative emotions: I don’t want to let my donor down; I don’t want to live a placid, unadventurous life; I don’t want people to look at me and think I’m wasting this opportunity.

FINDING THE POSITIVE
What I’ve realised I need to do above all else is to live for positive goals, to live for things that will drive me through ambition, excitement and joy rather than fear of failure or judgement.

I need to take positive steps forward, not resist stepping backwards.

Remarkable things and remarkable people only happen through their own determined, positive actions towards making their dreams, goals or passions turn into a reality.

We all know sitting around waiting for something to happen doesn’t make it so. But we never stop to think that going forward in fear and trepidation can be just as harmful to our eventual success as apathy and torpor.

A RESOLUTION
From now on, despite the bumps, the hurdles, the obstacles and the setbacks that I know will come my way, I vow to push forward, I promise to live my life in a positive frame, I pledge to smile through it all ((I should have listened to myself earlier)) and stop living in fear of what might never be, but instead to fight for how I want things to be.

It’s going to be a long, hard road. I don’t yet know where it will take me, what I will achieve nor how I will achieve it, but I know that going forward with positivity, with happiness in my heart and in the knowledge that I can achieve whatever I set my mind to will see me through.

I want to take you along on the ride with me. Not just here, on the blog, but in the wider scope of things.

NEXT STEPS, BABY STEPS
I will shortly be setting up a Facebook page for Smile Through It where we can all share the things that make us smile from day to day and our own positive steps towards doing the things we really want to achieve in life.

I’m also currently planning a major new documentary film project to help tell my story, but also to understand the psychology behind people given a second chance at life.

Do we all feel a desire to make an impact, or is it just my twisted psyche that drives me to achieve big things? Do we all feel a pressure to make the most of life, or is it just about an appreciation for the little things?

More on that to come, no doubt, but for now, here’s to positive steps forward in the right frame of mind.

Keep smiling.

“In the end, it’s not about the years in your life that count, but the life in your years” Abraham Lincoln

Coping with any sort of change is something many people struggle with for as long as memory serves. It’s a commonly accepted truth that change is hard.

If you have time to consider, plan and embrace a change that’s coming, it makes the whole process easier to deal with. Sometimes, though, time to prepare for change isn’t a luxury that’s afford us.

So it is with my decision to leave markthree media, my professional home since July last year.

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For those of you who have followed from the start, you’ll no doubt have seen the extent of the changes that have come and gone on this blog since my transplant in 2007.

All of these changes, re-focuses and new iterations have been great, but they’ve always somehow fallen short. It’s only in the last few weeks that I’ve really been able to identify just what it is, and it comes down to two simple things:

1. I had never clearly redefined the focus of the blog and what I wanted it to be.
2. I had no idea who I was writing for.

Now, though, I’ve found both.

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They say ignorance is bliss and, quite often, I’m inclined to agree.

Last Friday, we had the misfortune of attending the funeral of the baby boy of a very close friend of ours. He lived a matter of hours and the beautiful, emotional service proved – if there were ever any doubt – that there is little in life more powerfully heart-wrenching than the sight of a coffin that can be carried by one person.

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I’ve been mulling over a lot of the things I want to do in 2012 since I posted my list of goals. The question is, was the list enough?

That list represents the essence of everything I want to do over the next 12 months, the things I want to focus my life on and what I think will bring me the most happiness and fulfilment throughout the year. But is striving for “more” of something too generic an aim? Should I have more specific, more focussed goals?

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Just before the end of the year, I headed up to Stafford to see one of my oldest friends in Panto. I have a real soft-spot for Panto; it’s silly, it’s fun and it’s the kind of show that can get a whole family cheering, booing and singing along with the broadest grins on their faces. And, as an ex-theatre man, anything that puts bums on seats is great by me.

For my overseas readers, Panto (or Pantomime, to give it its full title), is a peculiarly English tradition of theatre where the lead boy is usually played by a girl, the main comic character is a man in drag and the plot is usually taken from a fairy story, historical events or classic children’s tale. And yes, it’s for kids.

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