I know a lot of you are thinking, "yeah, that’s noble, but to get ahead and have any pull I’m going to need a whole lot of walk around money, a big house, and a respectable job." In my view, a human does not allow the lure of wealth and splendor to undermine his or her essence. Believe me folks, I’m not saying poor is better -- I’ve been both, and I prefer the means to have. But people in search of a life well lived have learned to go for the gold (figuratively) AND give something back.

My passion is to help people stricken with asbestos cancer. I’m a lawyer. I represent patients with malignant mesothelioma, a type of asbestos cancer that to date has defied conventional treatments. In the litigation world, the street says we’ve fulfilled our mission if we "get the money." And that’s important. However, in 15 years not a single client has ever told me he’d swap out his lungs for a million bucks, or any amount. They want more life. They want to see their grandchildren graduate from HS. They’re sick of being told by doctors that mesothelioma is "incurable" so "go home and tidy up your affairs" or "take a long cruise."

I’ve spent many years in union halls, trailer parks, and hospital rooms. I have been inside the OR and I have seen the surgeons cut, burn and yank out the tumors that had been squeezing the life out of my clients. I have been to their funerals. I have won millions of dollars for widows and their families. But, contrary to popular thought, winning the big bucks has never been very satisfying.

So I reached out to the world’s top surgeons and scientists, who typically don’t work well in groups and hardly enjoy the company of trial lawyers. I set aside my disgust and reached out to "the enemy" and found two asbestos defense lawyers who were willing to do the right thing. Together, we formed a charitable foundation whose mission is to eradicate mesothelioma. My colleagues said I got in bed with the devil. But today, we’ve funded six major cutting edge research grants. We’ve given hope to thousands of otherwise abandoned and desparate patients. And, for the first time Congress is considering legislation to create a treatment program for this tragic and preventable disease that has taken such a heavy toll on our Navy veterans. (NOTE: you will need to view the document [.pdf] using Adobe Acrobat)

Plan II is an "interdisciplinary honors program." I helped build a coalition between doctors, industry, victims and their lawyers because that’s what I was trained to do.  I was trained to bridge the gaps betweens disciplines. As Plan II graduates, we’ve been taught to bring warring factions together, to find the common ground, and unite against the common enemy. We know our time is best spent fixing the underlying problem.

If you can put your training to work like that, the Honor -- if not the Glory, and perhaps even the wealth -- will follow.

Look, it’s not going to be easy. The high road is a hard road and along the way you’ll make mistakes. We’re imperfect. Most of the time we dont even know who or what we are. Kurt Vonnegut said :

"We are who we Pretend to be,

So we must be Careful choosing

Who we Pretend to be."

This sounds cynical, the notion that we are simply opportunists, without a core set of values. Yet, it seems that in the span of a single day, I change personalities like a traffic light.

Somedays our ideals are subsumed by the seduction of raw power. One of my favorite movies is Glengarry Glen Ross, a story about salesmen.  In the opening scene the "closer from downtown" is browbeating the staff, threatening to fire them if they don’t increase their sales volume. I’ve played this intoxicating yet shameful role. I’ve played the predator, caught up in the language of the slick Hollywood tough guy, driven by an angry force to close the deal, feed the hole, and win at any cost. This is a mask I wear when I’m careless. Yes, it’s fun to win, and nobody likes the thrill of the hunt better than I, but this sort of passion to "always be closing" is hardly becoming of a human, let alone a Plan II graduate.

But then there are the good days. Days when you get to wear the mask of a hero. You’ve put in the hours, you know your stuff, and you’re ready to roll. You want to help. You’ve got the energy to overcome ignorance, apathy and sloth. You realize you may have to go bonkers to get your point across but hey, that’s why they call it ENTHUSIASM -- the word itself means inspired by theos or god.

I spend a lot of time dreaming about those break-through moments. There’s an old Ute Indian saying:

When the Legends Die

The Dreams End

When the Dreams End

Why study so hard? Why suffer the risk of failure? Why strive for Greatness? The answer has to do with the profound satisfaction of pleasing the gods inside us, the gods who inspire us to pull off what’s thought to be impossible. I race bicycles. Here’s a picture of my alter ego, Max Kash Agro, attacking from the front on a long uphill sprint, motivated by the vision of Lance punching out his demons at the top of L’Alpe D’Huez.

Look, we can’t all wear the winner’s Jersey, but the Jersey, or the title, or the cash, does not measure the man. I know a lot sour "winners" and a lot of happy "losers." The difference is that one measures himself by conventional markers, the other by his own rigorous standards.

In the movie Raging Bull, Robert DeNiro’s character Jake Lamotta is beaten to a pulp by Sugar Ray Robinson. I often think about a battered and bloodied DeNiro happily heckling Robinson after the fight: "You never knocked me down Ray." Sometimes succeeding is simply a matter of stubbornly refusing to quit, of simply staying upright.

You don’t have to rage to deal with adversity. One of my clients took me aside after I rallied him to declare war on his tumor -- Slash the blood-sucking beast!, I ranted, Burn it! Posion it! Kill it!

He said:

"Roger, sometimes aggression is not the answer. Sometimes you just need to leave ‘er where Jesus flang it. Just let nature run its course. In some cases [he said] doing nothing is a way of ‘fighting back.’"

This brave and gentle man told me he was "living with the truth" that he couldn't eradicate his cancer with constant pressure, and that he was learning to "co-exist" with it. He lived with his tumor for 5 years. The average life span for asbestos cancer is about 9 months.

Bad things do happen to good people. Sometimes all the bravery, courage and foritude in the world won’t save a good person from his fate. We come to learn that we have a shelf life. Some of the best humans I have known have accepted this truth. They have tried to fill their days with honor, humor and humility. They know life’s imperfect and sometimes unfair but they don’t use that as an excuse for giving up or selling out.

In a similar way, sometimes good arguments founded on sound principles that really can make the world a better place simply won’t sell. It’s hard but we have to recognize that the best ideas don’t always win. When we get thrown for a loss, we have to dust ourselves off, set our jaw, and get back in the game, hopefully a little bit wiser for the wear.

Finally, consider this: there’s no amount of rhetoric or poetry quite as eloquent as a good example. You are the cream of the crop. You are the best hope for humanity. Lead by example. Don’t delegate the role of being a human to somebody else. Figure out for yourself what a human should be and then have the guts to measure up to your own ideal.

Thank you and Go Further!

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