Tag / hope

by Jacqueline Chartier

Some Words of Inspiration for Cancer Survivors in 2025

As we welcome 2025, I’m not going to use this blog to give a lecture about New Year’s resolutions or to suggest that you make elaborate promises to yourself. I realize that living with cancer often renders such gestures trivial and that your life is probably being planned week-by-week or month-by-month. Instead, I’ve chosen to share some of my favorite motivational quotations, may these compelling words make the beginning of another year a little less daunting for you and may the theme of infinite hope provide you with strength and inspiration for your cancer journey.

A letter from poet Ralph Waldo Emerson to his daughter

“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

Anthem a song by Leonard Cohen

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Ah, the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold, and bought again
The dove is never free

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
A famous quote from Abraham Lincoln

This quote from Lincoln emphasizes the importance of taking control of our own lives and shaping our own future. It suggests that we more often than not have the power to create our own destiny through our actions and choices. It’s an urgent call to action, reminding us that we are in control of our own lives and that we can shape our future. It encourages us to be proactive and take action to achieve our goals, rather than waiting for things to happen to us. Above all this quotation suggests that our future is not completely predetermined, but rather something that we can actively influence and shape. It maintains that in most situations we have the power to change our circumstances and create a better future for ourselves.

by Jacqueline Chartier

Fresh Hope for a New Year

This is the fifth New Year that I’ve celebrated since my cancer diagnosis, and each one brings with it a mixture of hope, fear and uncertainty. For many cancer survivors watching everyone plan for the future is difficult, it can produce mixed emotions and make the dawn of a new year extremely challenging.

That’s why I’m not going to use this blog to give a lecture about New Year’s resolutions or to suggest that you make elaborate promises to yourself. I realize that living with cancer often renders such gestures trivial and that your life is probably being planned week-by-week or month-by-month. Instead I’ve chosen to share some of my favorite motivational quotations, may these compelling words make the beginning of another year a little less daunting for you and may the theme of infinite hope provide you with strength and inspiration for your cancer journey.

 

hope-hands

 

“Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

— Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

 

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart; I am, I am, I am.”

— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

 

“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.”

— Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

 

“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”

— Barack Obama

 

sunrise-hope

 

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

— Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman

 

“When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live.”

— Stuart Scott

 

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”

— Maya Angelou

 

“I’m not a dreamer, and I’m not saying this will initiate any kind of definitive answer or cure to cancer, but I believe in miracles. I have to.”

— Terry Fox