The World Has Gone Mad-So Let's Go Shopping!
My article the other day struck a nerve with many people and surprise, surprise, they were all women. Some stories are heart-rending. Single moms raising kids alone with little or no family support. This is a Herculean task.
Now add a cancer diagnosis and treatment.
I just can’t even get my mind around this. My cancer diagnosis and treatment this past year has truly been the most difficult thing I have ever experienced. And I feel like I got off easy. It was caught early and I have a good prognosis.
Getting a cancer diagnosis blows to smithereens any illusion that things are good.
There is a line of demarcation after a cancer diagnosis. There is life before cancer and then life after cancer.
A hallmark of life after cancer is the profound awareness of just how brief life is and how vulnerable these physical bodies are.
It is a wake-up call. It is both a curse and a blessing.
Most people are sleepwalking through life. By the time we get through school, most of us are shut down and in automaton mode. It goes something like this:
Go to school. Get good grades. Get a good job. Buy a house. Buy stuff for the house. Struggle with soul sucking aspects of your job. Have a mental health crisis (depression or anxiety anyone?). Go on medication. Buy more stuff.
Or I can just say:
Do the shit you’re supposed to do, yea verily, what is EXPECTED of you. And then numb because you are unhappy and feel empty inside.
But keep up with the routine. Rinse, lather, repeat. (By the way. Did you know shampoo manufacturers dreamed up that little phrase in order to double their sales? Use twice as much as necessary=buy twice as much.)
Just stay on the hamster wheel and do as you’re told.
And then a cancer diagnosis (or a crisis of similar magnitude) forces the existential questions.
Why am I here? What makes me feel alive? How can I live joyfully?
Or. We can just shut it all down and go shopping.
I’m going to pick on shopping because, well, I’m an organizer/minimalist and see the deleterious effects of recreational shopping and compulsive consumerism. Feel free to substitute your favorite numbing behavior. (My personal favorite numbing behavior is merlot, so you get no judgement from me. Unless your numbing behavior is harming puppies and/or being an asshole.)
In part, I blame former President Bush. Remember after 911 what he told us to do?
Go shopping. Go shopping? SHOPPING? SHOPPING?!?!
Seriously?!
How about this instead? Connect with your friends. Bring a casserole to a shut in. Read poetry in a meadow to yourself and soothe your soul. Pause and listen to the gift offered by a street musician. Open the door for a stranger. Hug your loved ones every day. Do a kind act in secret. Paint a picture.
Unpack the gifting within you and ask yourself how you can use it to make the world a better place.
None of those acts will ever accumulate dust or end up in a landfill. But what they will do is enrich your soul and remind us of what is really important in life.
Don’t wait for a crisis-health or otherwise-to examine your life. It’s too important and time is too short.
Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at www.theresawinn.com, on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. If you’d like to support my writing in a small way, feel free to buy me a coffee
