Batman has always been my favorite superhero. The Dark Knight Trilogy films are some of my favorites. Michael Caine will always be Alfred to me, and when Alfred shares words of wisdom, I like to listen. Someone shared this clip of an interview with Caine on LinkedIn, and I think it’s great:
If the clip is removed by the time you click the link or you just don’t want to view it, here’s the best part of what Caine says:
“You ask my children, anything bad happens, what can we get out of this? Use the difficulty. There’s never anything so bad that you cannot use that difficulty. If you can use a quarter of 1% to your advantage, you’re ahead. You didn’t let it get you down. Use the difficulty.”
I like to think about my diagnosis/prognosis this way when I can. It’s usually less situational thinking and more of a consistent underlying theme of my thinking about how to use this brain cancer experience to make things better whenever possible. How can I turn the negative impacts of brain cancer into positives? I’ll be struggling with something at home, at work, whatever, and I try to pull in some perspective based on the reality of my prognosis. Sometimes it works, and I worry about the problem less. Sometimes it makes things worse or does nothing. Having unavoidable thoughts about my mortality every day is a powerful circumstance to try to manage, but I think the goal is to use those thoughts as tools to make things better.
Caine talks about using the difficulty as a philosophy. That makes a lot of sense and is easy to embrace. But implementing a philosophy takes discipline. Maintaining a positive way of thinking, or using the difficulty, is not easy, but it is worth the continued effort even if I fail many more times than I succeed.
Nick
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