No Cure For Creativity

Maybe you won't personally be effected, and maybe I won't personally be effected, but the next person WILL be.  Statistically speaking, forty-one percent of Americans will be stricken with some form of cancer.  It's all around us, and literally every few seconds someone else is hearing the same words Steve Jobs likely heard 8 years ago, almost to the day - "You have cancer".

Unfortunately, more people than we know have heard those dreaded words.  Millions of people know what it's like, including my father, who passed away on August 10th, of this year.  We tend to forget about the breadth of this disease until it touches someone close to us, or, when it takes someone famous.  Today, when you turn on your iMac, iPad, iPod or even turn on a Disney/Pixar movie for your children, think of and thank Steve Jobs.

Jimmy Valvano said it best, "Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever."


Though there is no cure YET for cancer, there's also no cure from keeping the creative creating, the successful from succeeding, the unselfish from giving, and the loving from sharing that love.


Thank you to:

• Patrick Swayze for some of the all-time chick flicks, and making nearly every girlfriend I've ever had consider changing her status from "in a relationship" to "single" from just a snippet of Ghost or Dirty Dancing.
• Earl Woods for helping mold the greatest golfer, and arguably athlete of my generation.  Your battle with prostate cancer inspired your son, and millions more.
• Peter Jennings for bringing news in a way that no one else did.  
• Humphrey Bogart who I've convinced myself I was in another life.
• Michael Douglas, for battling back, and holding the #1 spot on my favorite actor list since seeing Wallstreet at 16 years old.
• Bob Marley
• Ronald Reagan
• Walt Disney for creating the happiest place on Earth, and inspiring me to build something bigger than myself.
• Nelson Mandela, for fighting against inequality and colon cancer, and defeating both.

This was a spur of the moment posting, so I'm sure there are, unfortunately, many other cancer victims and survivors that have inspired you, as the ones listed above have inspired me.  Again, it's all around us, and though there are no cures, there are things you can do to reduce your risk and exposure to this dreaded disease, here are the top 7, as listed by Mayo Clinic:

1. Don't use tobacco
2. Eat a healthy diet
3. Maintain a healthy weight and include physical activity in your daily routine
4. Protect yourself from the sun
5. Get immunized
6. Avoid risky behaviors
7. Take early detection seriously

In no way is this meant to be "preachy".....I write this for me, because I can internalize it when I write it, read it and share it.  If you take anything at all from any of this, I'm glad I shared.