Breast cancer diaries: the beauty of free time

So what you are about to see is my journey of moving out from the previous town, changing my oncologist and settling down in a new house in another city.

In the meanwhile I have already had on the 27th of January 2026 a round of metronomic chemotherapy but I will write/tell you about it in the upcoming vlog.

I have had the time to reflect on some matters.

I can write it down.

Or

I can share a file from my diary, written recently.

I will do the latter.

Enjoy.

P.S. The last sunset I have caught a day before moving out from that town was superb.

24th of january 2026 diary

As I am walking in the small town where I study pedagogy I realize one thing: since my mother gave birth to me and I went to kindergarden I never had so much free time. Think about it: you are born. Until 6 years old, if you are lucky, your parents take care of you. You are not yet sent to an institution where others decide what you do in your free time. You have a schedule set up by educators when you are in kindergarden and then by professors as you grow older. You are never fully a master of your own time in the sense of having your basic needs met and an extra budget to assure you that you have the freedom to decide what you want to do. Perhaps this is the reason why we can end up as adults finding ourselves lost in a job we do not like and without any idea of what we would actually like to do. Having free time and living in a creative manner instead of in a survival mode makes you more prone and willing to think. Creative thinking is not what the majority of society expects from people. Individuals in survival mode tend to obey and follow orders as they are too tired to even question why they do what they do.

I feel like I have gained a new perspective on my cancer diagnosis and because I started to feel better after the severe autoimmune reaction that I had since the 6th of october I started to plan for my future. What would I really enjoy doing for money? What native talents have I left unexploited and how could I start mining into my divine gifts? If money would never be on the table for me worry what activity would make me want to jump out of the bed the minute I wake up ?

I started to have more time for me. To think. To pause. To take life slower. I realized that I worked on autopilot and most of the times I was in a rush to always occupy my free time with something. Do this. Do that. Go there. Never a moment of silence. Only in my long walks in nature I had precious moments with myself and even then I had to rush to go back home by a certain hour as I had work the next day. I am soon to be 36 years old and I find this thing appaling: to never have the intentional opportunity of free time by this age by choice. Some folks gather money for decades in order to afford a sabbatical. Some can afford it sooner and then when it ends they dread the life they have to go back to. It feels like a big conspiracy of those who started the industrial revolution, placing people in factories and seeing how lucrative such an activity is and how smart it is to never let people have too much free time to think their way out of it.

Just pause and look at the math from your life. If you are lucky you can get five weeks of paid time off from work per year. That is 35 days. What do you do with the rest of 330 days? How much of one year is it Your time for Yourself only? Take a piece of paper and write it down. Do the math. Look at the result. This is how much free time you think you deserve. Now ask yourself why and how did you end up like this. It might not be an easy moment.

I look at my life. I see many mistakes. I am happy for that now as it stands as a proof for my desire to try, try, try. A lot of attempts in various domains of activity. I see massive talent unexploited and not put to great use. Yet. The thing I dare to think about is my life after all of this free medical leave time ends. I can't go back and live my life like before. I feel the need for more meaning in what I do for a living. It is impossible to look at life through the same lens. That lens shattered in august 2025 when I received my diagnosis. I was not prepared. I thought it was a curse. Now I see the blessing. Never in my entire life have I had such an opportunity to have the time to think about me as a person, about my path in life, the service I want to do for a higher good towards humanity and the way I want to live my life as a creative individual who got lost in the minutiae of everyday life.

I wonder what would most people answer when asked this question: what do you have to do in order to have a full year for yourself to think about your mission on this planet while you are still alive?