The Art of Being Sick

Tony Snow, an American journalist, served for a short time as George W. Bush’s press secretary. In 2005, before taking on that role, he was diagnosed with cancer. A few months following his diagnosis, he shared this powerful perspective on his mortality:

The art of being sick is not the same as the art of getting well. Some cancer patients recover; some don’t. But the ordeal of facing your mortality and feeling your frailty sharpens your perspective about life. You appreciate little things more ferociously. You grasp the mystical power of love. You feel the gravitational pull of faith. And you realize you have received a unique gift—a field of vision others don’t have about the power of hope and the limits of fear; a firm set of convictions about what really matters and what does not. You also feel obliged to share these insights—the most important of which is this: There are things far worse than illness—for instance, soullessness.

Tony Snow succumbed to the ravages of cancer in 2008.

Let’s all appreciate the little things more ferociously, no matter our health and wealth.