Two days after Labor Day, 2015 I stepped out of a meeting with the CEO of our company to take a call from my urologist. His news was not unexpected, but still startling; “Jack, we have the results back from your biopsy—and I’m sorry to say that you have prostate cancer. Seven of the twelve samples are cancerous.” The rest of the call was about referral to a surgeon and an oncologist and the next steps. And frankly I remember almost nothing but those four words—you have prostate cancer.  Five minutes on the phone and my life was a fundamentally different thing than it had been.

Two months later, after tests and doctor’s visits and referrals and more poking and prodding in sensitive areas than I had expected to endure in a lifetime, I had learned that I probably wasn’t going to die, that I was going to have surgery, and that cancer would be a part of my life in some way for the rest of my life. I was 51 years old.

During the three months between diagnosis and surgery I lived my everyday life, flying around the country, visiting customers, vendors, designers and my far-flung team. I had lots of plane time to think and to research and to reflect.  I found myself asking three vital questions over and over again:

1. Am I happy with the person I have become?
2. Do I have to repair any important relationships in my life?
3. Who do I want to be after this?

Of course these are among the most important things we can ask ourselves. And in many ways no one else can answer these questions for us—they are very tightly bound up in our identity and sense of self. Answering them with honesty and openness is tough—and the only way I could do it with real integrity was to ask them of myself in front of my partner—and then answer them in front of her as well. She has a remarkably generous spirit matched to a sensitive BS detector and I needed her keep me honest. My answers were; Yes, No, and Wow—that is a big question.

I am happy with the person I have become over the last 30+ years of adulthood. I am a better husband, father, son, brother and friend. I am a better leader and colleague. I have become more thoughtful and less inclined to snap judgments (although I still LOVE snap judgments). I am more civil. I cut others and myself a lot more slack. I am less sure I am right and more sure that I will need to change my mind tomorrow. I am less angry, less fearful, less controlling. I am not perfect, and often I am not even very good. But I like myself a great deal more than I did 20, 10 or even 5 years ago. And cancer helped me see that.

More importantly I have left nothing unsaid to the people I love. They know I love them. They know I would lie down in traffic for them. They know I am sorry for what I have done that has hurt them and they know I have forgiven them for hurt they have caused me. (Because everybody in deep relationship with anybody has caused pain and been wounded). If my cancer would have turned out to be more serious than it was I wouldn’t have been frantically trying to make peace with my father or mother or brother or children. Or even my ex-wife—we’ve both let go of those hurts and that pain long ago.

The hardest question? Well that I am still trying to answer. Who do I want to be? The answer is both more of what I am and somebody much better. I want to laugh more (and I already laugh a lot). I want to cry more (ditto), be be moved more and move others more. I want to fill my life sharing experiences with the woman I love and the friends I have been blessed with and a family that continually enriches my life. I want to be wise and not just smart. I want to be more thoughtful than glib. I want to be more truly caring than vaguely concerned.

I don’t mean to sound smug or self-satisfied–I am very much a work in progress. Cancer has been a gift and a huge pain in the ass and scary as hell. But it has led me to real contentment. Because I was forced to ask those all important questions.

Am I happy with the person I have become? Do I have to repair the relationships in my life? Who do I want to be?

By the way—I learned a lot about prostate cancer in the last 7 months. Here are the resources I found most helpful:

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/statistics-by-cancer-type/prostate-cancer/survival

http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/default.htm

Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer