Michael J. Fox: Why Gratitude Trumps Optimism
Diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson's thirty years ago, Michael J. Fox has only now reached the average age for a Parkinson's diagnosis, at the age of 59.
Michael recently spoke candidly to The Guardian, where he shared insightful lessons about hope, family, and his acting career.
Ever since Michael went public with his diagnosis in 1998, eight years after receiving it, he has been careful to position himself as an inspirational ambassador for the condition.
In his new memoir, No Time Like The Future, Fox is reflective about the realities of living with Parkinson's and how he considers Parkinson's to be a gift, although he believes it to be "one that keeps on taking."
Fox also shares his darkest moments in the memoir, after a 2018 fall that required 19 screws to be placed in his upper arm, hot on the heels of surgery to remove a tumour that was unfortunately on his spine (unrelated to his Parkinson's).
Fox says that when tremors and a lack of balance caused by his Parkinson's were threatening the recovery of his spine, the fall and arm break led to a period of depression that he flatly calls his "darkest days."
Reflecting on the incident, he writes:
"Have I oversold optimism as a panacea, commodified hope? In telling other patients, 'Chin up! It will be OK', did I look to them to validate my optimism? Is it because I needed to validate it myself? Things don't always turn out. Sometimes things turn sh**ty. My optimism is suddenly finite."
"I believe in all the hopeful things I said before," he says. "But that all seems silly when you're lying on the floor, waiting for the ambulance because you broke your arm, and you feel like an idiot because you told everyone you'd be fine and you're not."
Fox, who played the guitar well during his younger years, can no longer do so. Even his new book had to be dictated to his assistant as he can no longer write or type. All of this, combined with him occasionally needing a wheelchair, has prompted the actor to retire for the second time in his illustrious career.
As Fox eloquently puts it, "You don't die from Parkinson's, but you do die with it," pointing out the increased difficulties to carry out essential functions in his life.
Fox's on-camera screen presence, he admits, was fuelled by his athleticism during his youth. His defining role in the Back to the Future trilogy was characterised by a knack to use his smallish stature to invoke physical comedy. The irony of Parkinson's is not lost on Fox, who skated, danced, and sprinted his way through the global hit as Marty McFly to propel himself to superstardom.
"If something changes, great, or maybe I can figure out how to do it a different way," he states optimistically, in typical Fox fashion, about his future in acting.
His optimism has, he says, "dimmed or softened" over the years, maybe because of age, or possibly because of the unalterable progress of Parkinson's. But one thing that has not changed is his refusal to indulge in self-pity.
"I just don't see the upside in extracting sympathy from people or leading with your vulnerability. I need to be understood before I'm helped because you have to get me, before you can get me there."
Fox reflects with a grin on his younger years, immediately after his diagnosis, "I was a baby. It took me a long time to get my act together and start addressing it. I had a twitching pinky and a sore shoulder. They said, 'You won't be able to work in a few years,' and I'm thinking, 'From this?'"
Regardless of his recent struggles, Michael J. Fox remains a global inspiration, using his fame and fundraising capabilities to promote Parkinson's research and awareness through the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. To date, the U.S.-based non-profit has spent over US$1 billion in Parkinson's research in barely two decades.
Fox may no longer be the eternal optimist, but he is very clear about his new stance - "I came to a place of gratitude. Finding something to be grateful for is what it's about."
Optimism is about the promises of the future; gratitude looks at the present. Fox has retrained his focus from running towards what will be, to seeing what is.
In case you missed it, Michael was recently interviewed on Newstalk ZB radio, in an insightful 14-minute conversation you would not want to miss!
Sources: The Guardian press release dated November 21, 2020, "Michael J Fox: 'Every step now is a frigging math problem, so I take it slow'".
Fox, M. J. (2020), "No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality", Published by Headline.