“Complain less, give more”
Source: in-cyprus.com
A final piece of advice from Australian Holly Butcher – written the day before she died last January from a rare cancer that usually affects children and teenagers, Ewing Sarcoma, at just 27 years of age:
“It’s a strange thing — knowing you’re going to die young.
At 26, I thought I had time…
To fall in love.
Start a family.
Grow old.
But cancer doesn’t care about plans.
Now, I understand how fragile life really is.
Every single day — it’s a gift, not a guarantee.
I’m not writing this to scare you.
I’m writing to remind you: really live.
Stop stressing over little things.
Be kind to your body — move it, nourish it, stop criticizing it.
One day you’ll wish you had appreciated it.
Go outside.
Look at the sky.
Feel the sun.
Just be.
Spend less time chasing “stuff” — more time making memories.
Don’t skip moments with people you love.
Laugh more.
Write a note.
Tell someone you love them.
Complain less.
Give more.
Helping others brings more joy than anything you can buy.
Be present.
Put your phone down.
Show up — really show up.
You don’t need to have it all figured out.
You don’t need a perfect body, or a perfect life.
Just follow what makes your heart light up.
Say no to what drains you.
Make changes when you need to.
And please — donate blood.
I wouldn’t have had that extra year without it.
And that year gave me memories I’ll hold close… forever.
Thank you for reading this.
Live your life well.
And maybe… we’ll meet again someday.”
— Holly
A BOOK. For relaxing days, I recommend “In Praise of Blandness” by François Jullien, who examines “effectiveness in Chinese thought”. It’s a small book of 118 pages published by the excellent University of Crete Press, Perspectives, translated by Thanos Samartzis.
It’s based on a lecture whose audience consisted of business executives. Jullien comes from the field of philosophy which is, he says, “the domain of Greece”.
However, in the book he chooses as his “working hypothesis” (case study) that of China. Which, as he says, “developed outside European thought, outside our language”.
In his eyes, “the greatest civilisation is China”, which developed, he says, outside European thought and outside our own language. And he adds:
“China is a kingdom whose civilisation, without contact and communication with our own, surpasses our examples in excellence from many perspectives. The history of China teaches me how much broader and more varied the world is than the ancients imagined, but also than we ourselves do.”
The book is written in simple language and, for people like me who underline the most important parts, the entire book is underlined and with many of my own notes in the margins. I highly recommend it.
PS. Someone will call all this melodramatic. They might even characterise it as fake. This did cross my mind too, to be honest. But I immediately confirmed, by going onto the ABC News Australia website, one of the most serious and credible media outlets, that Holly’s story is exactly as she herself has just described to us.
The original article: belongs to in-cyprus.com .
