We all have fears or phobias - whether we are brave enough to admit them out loud or not. For some people it's clowns, for others it's spiders or snakes, and for some it's heights (just to name a few). However, deep down, it seems like most people share an underlying fear of getting cancer - themselves or a loved one. As a PWC (Person With Cancer) I don't fear that anymore for myself - I have it and I'm living with the very real outcome of dispelling that fear. But I recently was reminded of how the world perceives this possibility (threat?) and how it can even affect their life choices.
I was chatting with a colleague (a new co-worker) who was retelling their journey to this latest job. Over the past few years, he had lost family/friends to cancer, and now was making this career choice (fueled by work/life balance choices) out of concern for possibly getting cancer and how that would impact his life and the life of his family - relative to the amount of time he currently spends working. He opted for this new career stop not necessarily because of the money, or the professional advancement, or the nature of the job responsibilities and challenge (growth). After some cancer-concern influenced consideration, he felt that this job was "fine" for a work situation, and was consciously turning away from the hectic pace and long hours and travel of our world (all known entities in our profession, and actually part of the exciting draw of our field).
Now in his early 50's, he felt that he wanted to shift his focus away from an increasingly meteoric trajectory within our occupation (Trade Show Marketing and Logistics), and work more from the "sidelines" as it were, settling into the Administrative or Managerial tract and being more able to work to live rather than live to work. This is an admirable decision, some good advice in general, and the path that so many 50+ folks are choosing. But what struck me as particularly interesting, is the way that he explained how tangential cancer experiences in his life seemed to be the impetus that steered him in the direction of taking this new job over others (which offered a higher level of leadership and an understandably appropriate higher salary). It wasn't the only reason, but the fact that it was a reason/rationale' at all, that he mentioned it to me in the story of his journey (with him NOT even knowing about my cancer journey), and how the prospect of getting cancer was reason enough to take a job that would allow him the time now to enjoy a slightly better pace of life, and be ready in case (heaven forbid) he or his loved one should join the Big C Club and need more flexibility to deal with that.
Here is a healthy person, theoretically entering the second half of his life, who's concern about cancer was enough of a new factor for him to make a career choice that took that possibility of becoming a reality into consideration for this new job. Now (so it seems), typical considerations such as geography, career advancement, salary, family values and the like; have a new decision-making can-cern to add to the mix, "What if I get cancer, and how could that affect my life and ability to do this job?"
