Lee Lipsenthal is a successful doctor, with a loving wife and two children. He is fifty-two, eats well, exercises, and meditates. One day he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. This book is not so much a story of his life as a story about his attitude to life and to his approaching death: that we should ‘enjoy every sandwich’ of our life and not spend energy worrying about how we think things ‘should’ be.
I’m liking
This small book makes for gripping reading and I found it hard to put down at times. The author switches between telling his own story in a very honest but also humorous way and reflecting on his own philosophy of life and attitude towards death and suffering. His holistic view of what ‘health’ means is very refreshing, coming from a doctor.
As a practised and habitual worrier myself, I loved quotes such as, “Pay attention to the good stuff that happens every day and enjoy what IS, not what SHOULD have been or what MIGHT be.” Also, the thought that the same events in life can affect people very differently depending on their previous life experience, expectations and attitudes was a useful reminder and an inspiration to be more open-minded and positive. I’m also looking forward to discussing with friends and family the thought-provoking premise that our modern medical system is deeply flawed because it focuses only on the elimination of disease and ‘victory’ over death, which is ultimately impossible because everyone dies. How much ‘health’ money is spent on increasing health rather than on fixing disease….?
Things that made me go hmmmm
I found the first half of this book more interesting than the last half to a third, where he does dwell more on his own reflections rather than on his life story. In particular, the author develops an interest in past-life experiences and has vivid dreams and flashbacks about his ‘past lives’. He does make an effort to look at this from a scientific point of view, but concludes that the personal experiences are so strong that they are real. As well as meditation, which I can cope with, he also uses trances and ‘shamanic breathwork’, which is a way of inducing a trance-like state using breathing and rhythmic music, to help deal with his cancer. This all got too weird for me.
He tries to be inclusive throughout with the use of words like ‘Destiny/God/Spirit’, or ‘the Universe intervened’, but I found that this didn’t sit well with me and it turned me off a bit.
The conclusion
I enjoyed reading this book! It it small, easy to read, and tells the story of an intelligent, loving man coming to terms with life and death. It contains concrete ideas for increasing your own happiness and serenity, like focusing on the things you are grateful for. It steers your mind away from the problems of life and the ways you are not measuring up to your plan, and reminds you to enjoy the things that are, right now. As long as you are happy to encounter a range of supernatural beliefs/practices, I would recommend it as a good read.
