...and then see how you feel.

In 1995, a friend of mine was diagnosed with Stage IV non-small cell adenocarcinoma of the lungs. The prognosis was poor, and I felt the need to do...something...

So, the day he married the love of his life--three days before he died--I made my first skydive. The plan was to make one jump. In the end, I earned a license and bought gear. From start to finish, my skydiving career lasted six years. If I had it all to do again, I think I'd have passed on what came after and simply continued on with my day-to-day life.

Your illness is a wake-up call to appreciate the life you have and to look for ways to enhance it, not toss it away for a new one.

We look at the lives of others, and we see adventure, but in truth, there is adventure in every day that passes if we will only open our eyes. An activity, be it making a skydive, getting a tattoo, taking a trip, going to school, is just that--an activity--not a life.

You have a life. You have people who love you. Don't throw it away--build on what you already have. It's worth a lot more than it seems right at this moment.

RenMan53: "Oh, and regarding the Hippocratic oath - it is a physician's oath, not a surgeon's oath, and yes Virginia, there is a difference. It is also not required of either physician or surgeon. It's laughable/sad that people who don't understand it think they score points using it as a cudgel."

What is laughable/sad is when you go out of your way to miss my point. My point is that a surgeon who spends 8 years in college, only to come out and prey on/profit from people's insecurities, has wasted the skills he's acquired as a healer.

You don't have to abandon your loved ones in order to pursue your dreams. Ten years ago, I decided I would start to travel at every opportunity. Since then I've been to several European countries, Canada, India, China and many great American cities. Five years ago, I quit my career, earned a master's degree -- while merging the travel bug with study abroad -- and have now landed a fantastic new job in a new line of work. I did all this while being an attentive, cohabiting girlfriend; and an involved and loving auntie, sister and daughter. In fact, I'll be traveling with one of my nieces to Europe next month.

You've been in people-pleasing mode all your adult life and now you want to "live for you," huh? This says to me that you have been living a lie: The rock-solid person your family and friends thought they were in a relationship with never actually existed. The person who told them in words and deeds that they were important, that a large part of your personal fulfillment came from being a part of theirs -- poof -- that person, gone. Now your personal fulfillment dictates that they be re-prioritized to the bottom of the barrel? Why would they not be thrown for a loop? Why would they not be hurt? Why would they not think you've gone off your rocker just a bit? They've just learned that they don't know who you are, this person they've been in a relationship with for decades. This is frightening and painful. Have some real compassion, not this fake concern you apparently have exhibited for them over the years.

You don't have to make huge announcements that you are now "living for you." You don't have to upend your entire life to do this. Yes, you had a scare. Envision a full life, prioritize your dreams, make a plan you and your husband can afford and live with, and then pursue it. He will most likely outlive you and may be saddled with not only grief at your passing but debt for years to come if you make a series of impractical and unwise decisions. If you actually love him, you would care about this.

This LW is really lucky -- she now knows something that most people avoid knowing as long as possible. Life is not infinite, and death will always come sooner than we want it to. Now that she's survived cancer for the moment, she wants the chance to live her life differently. That's wonderful, and it shows that she's paying attention.

But something about her new goals bothers me. Everything on her list has to do with personal adventures, big fun, and thrills. Ok, I'm sure sky diving is really amazing, but plastic surgery? I'm concerned that the big change she now feels so passionate about are all for her own personal benefit, and even the benefits she's envisioning sound possibly a bit shallow.

I mean, go have fun, by all means. And it's great to hear of a young person who doesn't want to settle for today's version of the conventional life. (I wish it didn't take a brush with death to make more people question the uselessness of ordinary American society.) But how about showing some desire to broaden her knowledge, her compassion, her ideals? Does she have ideals beyond personal adventure? Why doesn't she think about wanting to discover great new ways to achieve greater intimacy with her husband?

I don't know, I do try not to judge other people, but I think if I had been granted more life than I had expected to get, I might be thinking about something other than plastic surgery. When she was bargaining with God, did she pray, "Just let me live, and I promise I'll get a face lift?" In fact I do live with a chronic disease that's likely to shorten my life, and what I want more than anything is enough health and energy, and time, to find ways to express all aspects of my spirit in a way that might be of some help to others.

A life, no matter how long it is, spent in a quest for personal happiness, for big adventure and thrills, and god knows for physical beauty, is ultimately a waste of tiime. If you don't want to experience anything except feeling really really good -- well, it's an empty quest, and you'll find that out eventually. Most people get trapped somehow in very boring lives, and the will to get out there, take risks and have fun, is a great antidote to that. Fun is good -- it can even be a political act! But if we can't enlarge our minds enough to learn that the greatest happiness comes from caring about and helping others, then there isn't a lot of hope for us in these dark times.

I wish this LW all the best, and plenty of fun, but she could begin to be a better person by just being kind to the people who love her, instead of being so defensive and afraid that they might disapprove of her new ideas about adventure. Please, get real, you can't live an adventurous or unconventional life without tolerating disapproval from others. When you change the way you live, people around you can be threatened. But you can make choices about how you relate to their uncertainty -- you can care about THEIR well being, and the fact that they love you, rather than getting in such an immature snit about the fact that they might not approve of every thing YOU want to do. Look at your letter. There's a theme in it. Me me me.

LW wants to make big changes without shaking anything up -- to have her cake and eat it too. Her family and husband are probably afraid. As Cary says, they almost lost her. And instead of being so grateful for their love and support, and wanting to be kind and loving to them while also enlarging her life, this LW is just worried that someone might glare at her for wanting to get plastic surgery.

Hmmm. Think again, LW. You can start your big adventure by being willing to look at your own habitual thinking, and to open your heart past your comfort level. Now that's a real adventure.