Hey everyone, I’m writing to you from my couch, where I write most all of my messages to you. Home relaxing as I’ve had an active morning, and a pretty active week. Today is the first day of the Coins for Cancer Drive, and it will run until Monday April 1st. I launched the event at PWC this morning with a full school assembly, and I have to say that I am once again fully energized by being there. It is quite an experience to connect with 800-900 students, share some of your life with them, and then have them respond in such an amazing way. Each time I have that kind of an experience I know that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.
Over the next month I’ll be visiting other high schools, doing some service club and youth group speaking, generally talking to different stakeholders about different things, but the core of youth, education and Positive Attitude will always be present. Last time I wrote I asked for your help, as I’m beginning to move my mind through the growth of RealTime Cancer and that is a Challenge I certainly can’t tackle alone. A ton of you have responded and I want to thank you for your offer, over the next while I will get some order to your offers and will look forward to taking you up on them.
For the immediate future I’m focusing much of my attention on delivering this year’s Coins Drive, and that is what I want to talk to you about a little. The Drive has 3 main components, our blue and yellow ribbons, which are symbolic of Faith and Hope, collecting and creating a mountain of coin in our big collector, and my favourite part, getting out and talking to students and different audiences about RealTime Cancer and Positive Attitude. We developed the Drive last year when I was working with an Enterprise class at PWC, and it was based from the foundation of increasing Cancer awareness and giving people an opportunity to participate and contribute to that awareness and support RealTime Cancer. The Drive is 31 days, which is the same number of days I spent in Protective Isolation after my first Transplant. And our ribbons are the symbol of Faith, the belief that everything in our life happens for the right reason, and Hope, which I believe is most important when “life happens to us”.
That’s the purpose of the Drive, now for the participation.
For those of you who are interested to contribute coins and wear a ribbon you can do so at St. John’s Maple Leafs games, tonight and again on March 8th and 15th. You can also participate at A&W restaurants in St. John’s, Mt. Pearl, Carbonear and Gander, or at Newfoundland Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation Regional Centres, in Gander, Grand Falls, Corner Brook, and St. Anthony. We will also be responsive to those organizations who wish to collect coins on their own and we’ll deliver ribbons to you upon your request, which can be made directly to me here. Sorry to those of you not in the province, believe me when I say I look forward to delivering these events right across the country, and across other borders.
This morning I talked to the students about Challenges, and I explained that I look at Challenge in two categories, the unexpected Challenges and the personally selected Challenges. I am no different than anyone else, I’ve had may share of unexpected and personally selected Challenges, but I will say that the unexpected ones seem to be more significant and frequent in my past 3 and half years. I know that often times those unexpected Challenges can be viewed as disasters or traumas, but I also believe that they can be viewed as opportunities. I know that often times when you are presented with a Challenge like Cancer seeing the opportunities within that situation can be tough, but I know they are always there and if we make the effort to look for them, we’ll find ‘em.
While I like to feel that I’ll always be up for the unexpected Challenges that come my way, I will tell you that it’s the personally selected ones that I really love. And it is so great to be able to resume tackling some of those selected Challenges of mine, and today was a great reminder of how much I miss being proactive and choosing my Challenges. So for the next 31 days I’ll be taking on this year’s Coins Drive, and continuing to refine and develop my approach to my personal and professional life. My mindset is a work-in-progress, I’ve got comfort in some areas but uncertainty in many others and perhaps the reminder of some of the things I love will help my mindset along the road to finding comfort and calm when approaching the rest of my life.
My cold doesn’t seem to want to leave fully, but I have also been feeling really well all week. My blood work is pretty good, nothing too major to worry about, the drugs are stable and hopefully I’ll be in a position to make a real commitment to my physical rebuilding. I promise to keep you updated on the events of the Coins Drive, and the RealTime Cancer website will have lots of Drive activity updates. Hope you have a great weekend, and I’ll be back soon.
Always…
Live Life. Love Life.
Geoff
