We all have two lives
That's what Confucius says, and that the second begins when we understand that we only have one. Mine started when I had cancer at the age of 17.
A tumor in a leg.
Yes, about the size of a tennis ball, and the first thing I heard from a doctor was that they had to cut it off. Despite this, and because I spent a year in a hospital, I have good memories.
Because?
I was intimate with many children. He was the eldest in the pediatric oncology ward and enjoyed entertaining them. Unfortunately, many died. It happens every moment on the planet.
What changed?
My way of seeing life: you are not the only one who suffers, build with what you have. I could not get out of there and complain about routine life when I had lived with children who died in the next room.
...
It's hard to remember his last look, and we don't even want to think that this is happening every moment. Death is not something that corresponds to old age, but something that can come at any time. I want to take advantage of the time, I want and I must enjoy.
He healed his cancer and his mother died.
We were very close. My mother suffered a lot from my illness and cancer did kill her. I was 21 years old. My father passed away when I was two, also from cancer.
Excuse me, it's a very hard life.
I still consider myself privileged. I am still fighting this disease, but I have no symptoms and I can enjoy myself, which unfortunately my father and mother can no longer do.
His leg was not working.
I have a piece of artificial femur and hardly any muscle. An eminence saved my leg and I was able to enjoy unimaginable things.
He ended up running ultramarathons.
I never believed that I could run even a kilometer, beating myself was a reward. I ended up doing trail running and then got on the bike not knowing if my leg would give out.
But what changed in his head?
After what I experienced, the predatory dynamics of city life, not having time to see friends, those voracious routines that cause emptiness, and that unhappiness that I saw around me, pushed me to do something different: travel world.
Have you ever thought about it?
I thought that to travel you needed a lot of money, but I decided to cross Spain by bike and I've been on the planet for nine years now.
What has surprised you?
The humanity of many people, who have given me so many emotional and rich moments.
We urbanites have the feeling that the world is hostile and dangerous.
I thought so too. Fear is the greatest incapacitating factor in our life. Approaching death made me appreciate that those fears were ephemeral.
He is going for his third cancer.
Two and a half years ago I suffered colon cancer and now one with a poor prognosis, a peritoneal carcinomatosis that we treated with chemotherapy, but fortunately I don't feel bad. Everything that comes is a gift. I have learned to accept these situations.
Many will see their life as an accumulation of successive misfortunes.
I have learned to adapt, to accept the bumps. I have been fulfilling a dream for nine years. If life is made of emotions, I found no other way to collect more.
What are you searching for?
May every day be intense, good feelings that last in my memory. Motivation and passion can take you where you did not think. I enjoy the uncertainty, not knowing what will be around the next corner.
What is important in life?
The essential is in the most basic things, for example, in the people we love and to whom sometimes in this society we cannot dedicate the time that it requires.
TRUE.
We must be able to have a coffee with a friend without it being an event, give him a hug. We don't have time, but we have a world full of distractions.
Procrastinamos.
We must take time to ask ourselves questions, to reflect on how we feel, to ask ourselves what we want to do with our time, why we are angry or cannot sleep. I have very young friends who take sleeping pills, a symptom of the neurosis of this society.
Is right.
Our mind associates death with something distant, with old age. But unfortunately, when you live close to her, you know that she can arrive at any moment. And that makes you have your feet on the ground, know how to appreciate every moment and not postpone. Put a date on your plans, on your motivation, because living is a very, very short walk.
