Deborah James (2022) How to live when you could be dead.

Someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancer every 15 seconds. Some readers will be reading with that in mind. Others to find out more about life and death (which isn’t optional). Deborah James died on 28 June 2022, and her death had a major, immediate impact on the sales of How to Live When You Could Be Dead. It debuted at number one and became the bestselling non-fiction debut of 2022.

It had me thinking of the classic BBC series: Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead? (and not be dead)?

Seize the Day.

For every UK copy sold, £3 was donated to James’s charity Bowelbabe Fund. Her death and the publicity surrounding her final weeks helped drive donations to over £7 million.

Her husband and two children are her legacy.

Final Word. ‘check your poo’.

Addendum.  A letter dictated to Sebastian, Hugo and Eloise shortly before her death.

You might not be able to control what happens to you (why me?). But you can control how you deal with it. (Analogies with the hand you’ve been dealt…)

Accept your new reality. But live with purpose. She borrows the phrase radical hope.

Two days we won’t see the full 24 hours: birth and death.

Live life in the present.

‘Some of those 86 400 seconds you get every day need to be spent on moving closer to what you want from life’.

Prioritise—your joy. Practice being grateful.  

She offers advice on reframing negative thoughts, which include journals. In other words, write things down. Having a positive mind set. Take it out of the box and give it a go.

The power of ‘yet’. Finding the sparkle.

A bit of an old-fashioned chap book with pick-me-up quotes:

Viktor Frankl:

‘I would never have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation. Just enough to make it liveable.’ Read on.