US Sports have some strange contrived rituals. Today is baseball trade deadline day, the last chance for teams to juggle their rosters before the playoffs. Teams in with a chance of success might pay more than usual for a player that could make a difference. It makes sense, but is a bit depressing for teams and their fans on the selling end of the equation. On Saturday my team traded one of their best players and it surprised me not at all when I tuned in to watch their game that evening to discover they were already losing 9-1 to a poor opponent. Talent matters, but a winning attitude and team mentality matter more.
It reminds me of when my career was on the rise and I could expect to be moved to new locations and positions quite frequently. I learned quickly that one imperative when arriving at a fresh outpost of the empire was to give the impression to the locals that I hoped and planned to be there a long time. I had to say it often, and I even had to believe it and act like it, or I would have no chance of building any respect and to create a winning team. As an itinerant expatriate, one of my family rules was to operate as if we would be staying forever, right up until the day we knew we were not. That also helped the family to invest in their situation and to stay happy.
Now I am on a very different journey and the advice I receive most often is that a positive attitude is the most important driver of sustained good health. Some people attribute the effect to prayer or superstition of some other external influence. In any case I find it to be true, and I have discovered some related facts too, such as the benefits of staying active when tired or eating when nauseous and not fancying much food. The problem with the advice about attitude is that it is not easy to act on it. You can’t create positivity out of thin air; instead you have to things to help stay positive. As well as saying it, you have to believe it and act on it, and that can be tough when your body is sending wholly different messages.
So far I have managed to follow my own advice most of the time, mainly because I have the advantages of feeling physically well and a strong medical and support team. I don’t judge those who can’t stay positive, because many of those people cannot share my very practical reasons for optimism and thankfulness.
Even within a general spirit of positivity and an attitude of getting on with life, there are limitations arising from my situation. As well as maintaining hope, I insist that it is important to try to be ready for what lies ahead and what may confront us at any time. If bad news comes as a complete shock, we are less likely to find a smart response to it when it arrives.
This dichotomy arises on an almost daily basis via practical decisions. Yesterday I received a renewal notice in the post for my favourite magazine, The Economist. There are options to renew for one, two or three years, with discounts on a per issue basis for the longer options. The subscription does not break the bank, but certainly adds up over time.
For how many years should I renew? Previously I would have taken the three-year option without much thought, once I had confirmed that it was cost free to change the delivery address in mid-subscription. Now I will probably opt for a single year. Even though it also cost-free to cancel at any time, I cannot imagine my wife getting around to it in the event of my death or incapacity, and the odds of those eventualities have changed, whatever attitude I choose to take. This would be like all those streaming subscriptions we pay for month after month after having accepted an offer of a short free trial for a particular program and then not got around to cancelling. Another of my principles is not to create unnecessary complications for her.
It is amazing how many such smallish decisions face me week after week. The hard part is not the decision per se, it is the small reminder of an unwelcome reality. In a way it is just like my New York Mets struggling to compete after being separated from some of their best players.
I face this reality daily, and I have come to embrace it and to let it affect my mood only marginally. Others around me have to face it too. Imagine the people running some of my choral groups, in the process of signing people up for the coming season and hoping for enough certainty to enable them to plan repertoire and dates and budgets. I am not much use to them, only able to commit with a series of caveats, yet still creating guilt in their minds so they want to try to indulge me. None of this is made simpler by the complex decisions we face relating to my wife’s work and our possible relocation at some point.
My old expatriation rules surely apply. For most items and decisions, I must expect to be around here for a long while and have to actually want that eventuality. I have to say it, sound as though I believe it and act on it. For most decisions that is the determining principle. Six months expensive car insurance became payable this week too, and I simply paid it and moved on swiftly.
There is some sort of threshold in play here, and The Economist renewal lies somewhere near the boundary. For the biggest decisions we have to take the new reality into account. We now renew our apartment lease for one year instead of two and insist on a clause whereby we can exit cost-free and with limited notice. That ten-year debenture for membership of the new golf club in Portugal does not make much sense to consider now.
As with so much on this journey, the emotional and practical aspects interact, which I suppose is this the basis of the advice to try to stay positive. Every choice, every waking thought really, comes with the very clear context, the context of cancer. Still, that is how things are, and it is not hard to stay positive most of the time, given all the blessings I can count. Remembering lessons from former experiences does no harm either.
No comments:
Post a Comment