We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - What to Do with Our Short, Precious Life with Kate Bowler

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

1. Kate describes the overwhelming feeling of love—not anger—that she felt when she was sure she was near death.  2. Why it’s time we throw out expressions like “Everything is possible” and “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger,” and rewrite our cultural cliches.  3. Why Kate delights in celebrating the holidays—and how to survive the holiday season when there’s grief and loss and fear in all of us.  4. Kate and Glennon bond over their love for swear words—and how using them is a reflection of what’s going on inside of them. About Kate: Kate Bowler, PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change. She is the author of Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel and The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities. After being unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 35, she penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved) and her latest, No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear). Kate hosts the Everything Happens podcast where, in warm, insightful, often funny conversations, she talks with people like Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Lamott about what they’ve learned in difficult times. She lives in Durham, North Carolina with her family and continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School. Book: No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) Instagram: @katecbowler Twitter: @KatecBowler To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at 12.99 per month. Hello, loves. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We're going to jump right in. I'm so looking forward to this episode. Sister Amanda and I have been talking about it all weekend. And that is because we have our dear friend who we've never met in real life. and her name is Kate Boller. Kate Boller, PhD, I didn't know before, Kate, wow,

is in New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether or not were capable of change. She is the author of blessed a history of the American prosperity gospel, so good, and the preacher's gospel, so good.

And the preacher's wife, the precarious power of evangelical women's celebrities. After being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at age 35, she penned the New York Times best-selling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason, and other lies I've loved. And her latest no cure for being human and other truths I need to hear. Kate hosts everything happens podcast where in warm and insightful often very funny conversations, she talks with folks like Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Lamott about what they've learned in difficult times. She lives in Durham, North Carolina with her family and continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School. And I want to tell you all two things. First of all, Kate, I'm looking at her right now. She has a huge beautiful

sign behind her, which is the title of her book that says no cure for being human. And when I asked her about it, she said she's trying to counteract all of the mandatory good vibes that people are always selling for walls. And I'm just so excited, Kate, because I feel like with you and your anti-good vibes and me and my passion for demotivational speeding, we're gonna do a lot of good. And also I just want to say this one thing which is completely inappropriate as a feminist and person who believes in people's insides, but you look so pretty. I had a moment right before I saw you, I was like, hey, this is, this is not your egg game. I don't know what game this is, but it's not it. So thank you.

So it makes me feel really special. You're also very wise and kind and brave and smart, but, but also pretty. You're also very wise and kind and brave and smart, but but also pretty. I accept as a Canadian, just like trying to try to push a compliment up hill with me is really hard. So I'm going to do that work. Thank you. So take us to the moment to get all of the listeners up to speed. Kate at 35 was given a few months to live and her vow to herself was, I want to be alive until I am not. And this haunting struggle that you talk about a lot is how do I know if I'm doing this right? We wanted to have you here for this whole community because really what we're talking about is just

the reality that every single one of us shares. With Kate, which is that all of our lives will inevitably end. And we all have this shared struggle to wisely spend our finite time, to be alive until we are not. So Kate, can you take us to the moment, you're married to your high school sweetheart, you're raising this precious to your old son and you're diagnosed with incurable stage 4 cancer. Can you tell us about that time? Yeah, yeah. And I'm sorry for missing the part of the beginning where I say,

holy crap, thank you so much for having me as soon as to be here. I was just so thrilled by the complimented. I just didn't say holy crap. I just I um I just really love you both and I love these conversations. So thank you for having me in one. I am feel very honored. I am. Kate, can you also tell me that I look pretty? Um, pretty?

I mean, truly? Thank you. I accept. Okay. Can I answer to it one night time? Can I just go out and just just telling everyone they've got you. I do, what's so funny too is that I think one of the very first moments that I knew that I maybe wanted to live a little bit longer and have, it was that I knew that I was ready

to have dumb plans when I was like, hey, do you think it's okay if I maybe try to be a little decorative or start buying, start buying slightly sluddy looking close again? Yeah, something that doesn't just sort of bleach well and dry well and can be removed with only one hand in a post hospital surgery moment. I just, yeah, man, isn't it so fun just to be ridiculous and decorative and to do things for nothing. And all of that makes us feel special. And that was maybe the first feeling that went away was that I was like a body and that my body was good.

Because I think mentally it was just so hard to switch into the moment where I used to just be a normal person. I was a joyfully boring historian who loved footnotes and very long deads pros. And I just wanted to have my dream. And my dream was just to be a professor and talk about why then she's functions and to have this very idea-heavy life. And then all of a sudden, my life was the one that blew up.

And it was the fall, and I wasn't supposed to make it to the spring. And I think the first moment was a surrealness. Maybe all along, it was everybody else that mattered. And it wasn't somehow, it just wasn't me. And so I accepted the devastation of it with a kind of awful acceptance, as if it somehow made sense.

And that, I realized only maybe after writing the book, that it was a result of having begged for care for so many months and being turned away, that when my pain was not believed that just somehow in the mix of things I stopped believing that my pain mattered. And so when I was finally diagnosed, there was not a healthy moment when I was like,

oh yeah, right, of course it's me. Sister, you and I talked about that. Yeah. The rage that I have over the way you were told over and over that your physical problems were the result of psychological problems. So basically, you were sick because you were crazy. And we know that this wildly disproportionately happens to women and even more so for black women.

But what can you say to us about the inexcusable reality that women who are fighting for their lives also have to be fighting to be taken seriously? Yeah, yeah, because we're told that there's a good patient and we just need to be the good patient. We just need to be cheerful, easy to care for. We need to be, you know, to descriptive about our pain, but like, let's not get over, let's not overdo it. Don't make me uncomfortable while you're telling me about it. And by the time that I, I mean, I had been sent home,

it was about five months that I was bounced around between doctors when I could, at times barely walk because I would double over in pain. At one point, I just went to the ER and I was like, I say, I can't do this anymore. But because I didn't have the appearance of someone in that much pain, which is to read gender and relative youth and all kinds of things onto not being believed believed I was sent home with Pepto Bismol. So it wasn't until I yelled, and I've never, I've never yelled at someone before, let alone someone in a doctor's office,

and was like, I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving until you give me a scan. And it was only when I lost it and wouldn't play the role anymore that I got the scan that told me that I, that by that point, did it escalate to stage four cancer? That's amazing, that that's what you had to do.

It's not exactly the same, but the time I first got help us when I walked into a, I was in high school and I walked into guidance counselors at office and said, I'm not doing this anymore. I can't do it. I'm not leaving here until you help me. And that's when I ended up in the hospital. But it was because I was like, I'm just not going anywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

It's the showdown moment. It's a showdown moment. It's amazing that that's what women have to do. Yes. Yeah. There was the only glorious historical moment of joy I had about that was 24 hours later after I'd had the scan and for it was so bad, it was the same man who was assigned to do my surgery. And in the pre-surgery moments, I grabbed him by his lapels and I pulled him really close to my face in front of all the nurses when I was lying in the gurney and I said, I'd better not die looking into your eyes. And that is the most sad case.

When the nurses burst out laughing and then I burst out laughing, it was just, it was like a, it was a good moment. Yeah. That's why all of your work is good moments. That's why all of your work. Yeah. It's so good because you take us to the brink of, of tears. And then the next paragraph we're laughing.

And the same is true of your podcast. One of the things I found cool and interesting is that you talk about this near death experience study that somebody did, and then the reason it got your attention is because you had a similar experience after you got your diagnosis, and I found it interesting because we're all so terrified of finding out how when we're

going to die. We do all know we're going to die, but we do find it, you know, very uncomfortable to think about. Yes. Yes. So we all kind of know, like, what will I do? Like, will I have that Jerry McGuire moment that's like, I'm not going to do what you think I'm going to do, which is just freak out, right?

But you say it seems too odd to say what I knew to be true that when I was sure I was going to die, I didn't feel angry. I felt only love, which is what they had discovered in the near death experience study. So can you just talk about that? Yeah, it was very weird, because it wasn't even that I always just felt loving. I felt loved.

Like I felt so all of a sudden loved. Like it was glue that was holding together, not just like my sanity, but my, like the ability when you look at someone who loves you and then they mirror back to you something true about you. And I then felt like I wasn't in those moments like part of this disposable medical you know train racks that I'd been a part of. And it was the study they'd done where they'd interviewed a number of people who had had new death experiences by just a variety of different causes, attempted suicide, like labor, all kinds, like a car accident, and that there was a surrealness to a very sort of undescribable and socially surprising feeling, which is to suddenly feel loved.

And I felt very intensely that I was loved by God, but also just all the gorgeous moon-faced people who were just being people where they bring you socks and they know that you haven't brushed your hair in five days. And I felt bubble wrapped. And that taught me, I guess, in that all my hard work, all my attitude, all my like striving, that there's a moment when we are so weak, that there's just no striving that's possible. And in those moments, I really do think that it is, there is like a spiritual community

a game that happens where we can just be so flooded by other people's love that it makes the unbearable somehow carriable in those moments. Didn't you say that that feeling and by the way you were as honest as always and say and you say that does go away. Yeah, yeah, God, God, God. And then petty and complete. I'm a colossal dick again. Yeah, of course, and that's comforting also. But it was so strong that you, some of your first thoughts were, I don't wanna go back.

I don't wanna go back. And did you mean when you wrote that, like back pre-diagnosis? I don't wanna, I just felt a little, I don't wanna unknow this. Like I guess, because you know when you feel like the, the, everything in the world just breaks apart and then, and then almost like, like you're looking at life, but it's like a, like a shirt that's inside out and you

see all the seams for everything. Then all of a sudden, in all the jagged seams, there's just so much, there's just so much beauty in the world. Like you notice your pain, but then you notice everybody else's. The person struggling to reach something and the person that helps them, someone in the cancer clinic smoothing their mom's hair. In all those moments, it feels like you just get flooded by how fragile and gorgeous and ridiculous life is. I just kept feeling like, I really hope I don't unlearn this

because it's, I wouldn't have known it if my life didn't feel so unbelievably fragile and somehow like crystalline in those moments. I'm Jonathan M. Hevar. I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things. But I grew up working class. My parents were immigrants with factory jobs. And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I want to talk about it.

That's what we're doing on my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food. I was like, girl, we're not doing that anymore. You'll hear from people who told me awkward embarrassing and strangely intimate things about what class means to them. She said, you know, for the house cleaner, I hide the tag on the $6 bread. And I just thought, don't you think she knows that you're wealthy?

You're hiding the tags from yourself. Classy. A new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Street Studios. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. And then you got some really cool advice from a dear guide and friend during that time, and I come back to this all the time,

because it means something different to me all the time. But they said, after a long, beautiful conversation, they just said to you, don't skip to the end. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to us about what that meant then and what that still means. I, I work with these wonderful jury attributes, she said respectfully if all of her academic colleagues, but like everybody was like everybody was supposed to be. And meanwhile, I'm like dying at 35. And I was like, guys, now's the time, sit me down. Like what adds up?

Like you had these lives, what is it? Like what benchmarks did you get somewhere? Did you accomplish something? Were you at a kid's wedding? Like did you, were you, did you become a certain kind of person? Like just give me the math and I want to get there. Is it because the math I was running is my kids too.

This is how long it takes to launch a kid. This is how long until they have memories. Hey, gosh, I have to live long enough for him to remember me. I'm just like, tick, tick, tick, I'll just try to make all the math work. I was like, just give me the answer. My friend is like, okay, but then it comes undone. And if it comes undone, and he's saying it comes undone at 70 something, then I need

to realize like, there is no arrival, there's no, there's no like, I guess like, almost like bucket listy check list of experiences I'm gonna get. And if there's not enough and there never will be that feeling how do I learn to live like that? Can you tell us? Yeah, there's an end. Yeah, seven steps. It's my two books, seven steps,

the ultimate white fulfillment. Gonna become a self-help author. Guys, I've got a workshop. Oh, you're amazing. we could just sell each other. No, I would, I would, that, Lixin, what I said about no cure for being human as I believe Kate Boller is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth. That is for damn. Oh, my darling.

So tell us the truth. There's no being done. Yeah, there's no, there's no done. Yeah, there's no there's no done. And there's no formula and there's no, there's no enough except those moments where you feel it and you know it. And like, and you're loved and it feels like transcendence for like a hot second. And it's, um, and then the second it's gone, you feel like you're going to starve to death. Because I think that is how the beautiful good stuff is. Like, love, it makes us hungry. Beauty, it makes us hungry. Like, if there was a solution to the problem of being a person,

we would have found it. We wouldn't be stuck managing our endless beautiful chronic stupid gorgeous lives. So yeah, the no formula thing is kind of, it's kind of, it's kind of killing me. Because I feel like it's all I think about, because I think about cultural cliches, like as a historian, and as a person who's just trying to find a way to live is, I'm always like latching on to another formula and then trying to realize oh there's a there's a historical construct there there's a reason why I believed it now I just have to dissolve it in my hands and then and then live open handed again and I'm not loving it I'm not loving it live open handed again yeah the part that the like unformula part that just sunk in my soul when you said all of our masterpieces ridiculous, all of our striving unnecessary, all of our work unfinished, and are done before we've even started. It's better this way.

I mean, I just, because if I could finish it, I just, it's the challenge of every day, right? It's what happens when you look at the people who need you and love you or you look at your inbox or you look at all of the things you hope to do or the places you hope to go and feels like it can't possibly be better that way. Wouldn't it be better if we could just add it up? But if you know your masterpiece could never be finished and it's never supposed to, then

maybe... Then the point is just to keep painting. Yes. It's not to ever painting. Yes, yes. It's not to ever have finished product, right? Yeah, yeah. When you talk about this part, like, got me in the soul, because you were talking really honestly

about your fear of dying. And I love this question so much, because I think it's mine. You know, you said, do you think when I die, I won't have to feel apart. In my mind, I'm always making up 40 million ways that that won't happen. Yeah. Like I'll still, I'm designing heaven. Yes. I've been controlling, so I feel like maybe whatever it is that I might have a better plan.

But can you talk to us about that fear of a partners? And does it have to do mostly with Zach and Tobin? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had been, you know, as a very Jesusy person, and I work in a Jesusy, you know, to be nice school, and I got a lot of Jesusy male, and like most of the solutions to the problem of pain

that were handed to me, that to me were the most painful, were attempts at Christian solutions to say, well, it's as if like your life is this like past, present, and future, and don't worry, we've really frayed the future with some really great solutions to the problem of your horrible present. Like heaven is gonna be amazing.

You can all, you know, you can all be together there. God will drive every tear, et cetera, et cetera. And as if if I wasn't thrilled about the possibility of heaven that I was somehow less faithful or less, yeah, less good. And it just made me so angry. Faith can be many things and it just can't lie. And I knew it was a lie to say that my child's life would be somehow as good if I weren't his mom.

I know it wasn't true, it could still be good, would it be as good? Not to compliment myself,. I knew I wasn't true. It could still be good, it would be as good. Not to compliment myself, but I'm kind of a good mom, a good mom to that kid. I was just scared that heaven would be the moment when I miss it all. I don't get to smell's head, I don't get to see them graduate. Like it just felt ridiculous, ridiculously to say to someone who like it just felt ridiculous, but a ridiculously disaid, someone who is so terrified about missing it. And I think that my vision of whatever

a beautiful future with God might be, I do believe that hope is like this anchor that gets dropped in the future. And there's this beautiful story about love that we are being pulled toward. But none of it ever feels like it can even make sense of the hungars we have as people who have people who rely on us.

So I never think there's gonna be a spiritual solution to the problem of the future. But I do know that in the end, it will all be love. But it's just very hard to imagine that in the meantime, when all I want is now, and just endless now. You put a sign in your living room that said, you are my bucket list for Tobin and Zach. My sister and I talked about that for an hour on Saturday.

For different reasons, we felt we were so moved by it for different reasons. I was moved by it one because I actually feel that way. Like, whenever anyone asks me, what do I want to do? Yeah, I almost feel guilty because I have no bucket list. Like, I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to do any other things. I don't. But that idea that your people, yeah, are what you want to have the endless nows with. Yeah. Is so beautiful. I love that.

Signs so much. Can you just tell me about this part of your story is extremely personal important to me, which is that right after your diagnosis, you started swearing. Yeah. A lot. Can you?

I felt so validated in that moment. I have not had to wait for a diagnosis to start swearing, I started swearing it maybe four. But just talk to us for a minute about that. What is that about? Was it like some kind of honesty coming out? Of course, I relate to swearing with honesty. Yeah, me too.

You do? I course, I relate to where I'm honesty. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I do. I think I, yeah, I think that the tragic comedy of life is so terrible and absurd and awful and usually funny in the same moment. And none of it feels very polite. And like I work in this. So I work mostly with these mainline traditions and those churches are more sort of like a lot of stained glass and a lot of like, oh, it's 1205, the organ's playing, let's head out of here. And I started to feel like everyone would have been fine if I just died very politely, just sort of quietly, I presented myself. And I just love it in

a television show or in a novel or something where the character is like Fuck it and just like flips a table and says all the All the unscripted things it was beginning of the season of of lent or like you know Jesus dies blah blah. It's big moment at the end To be like I was just so fucking in rage. I was enraged about everything At uh, yeah, rage really helped me feel like I wasn't living in this sort of like precious moments culture anymore with little delicate figurines and doilies

and women who had the vapors. I was like, you know what, like we're to do anything. We're gonna be brutally honest, regardless of whether or not it feels acceptable anymore. Yes! Let me ask you questions. I'm always curious about this. Then we can move on from the swearing. Because people give me a hard time for swearing a lot. That's like, oh, no, no, wonderful. But my question is, is the voice inside everyone else's head not constantly swearing?

I'm actually just supposed, I'm trying to match my insides with my outsides. So the reason I'm swearing is because that is honestly what's going on. My inner voice all day, like, is just like, what the fuck, fuck, what the fuck, fucking fuck, like every once in a while, fuck you, what the fuck, is all that my very brain says all day. And then, and then every once in a while, they'll be a holy shit. Yes.

That's like one of those moments you're talking about. That's my awe. But Kate, is your inner voice not constantly cursing it or is it and then you're translating to something that's better? I know. Now I wish I remember the exact study, but it was one where they let people either put their hand in icy cold water and then they timed it and they tried to figure out people's pain threshold based on whether they were allowed to swear while doing it.

And it was the people who were screaming fuck that were able to keep their hands merged for longer. And I thought, done, yes, of course, which is I'm always having needles, massive stomach incisions, painful, ridiculous conversations, and then a kid's birthday, and then small talk. And I find the pendulum swings to be so insane that I need a, I need a big vocabulary

to manage the wide spectrum of reality. And so it's pain and it's joy and it's a lot of fucking intolerance about the middle. Yes. That's kind of that that demanding to be seen. Because one of the themes that I love about your work is this false dichotomy that we have of like, oh, Kate's dying.

Not the rest of us though. The rest of us are not. Exactly. Let's keep this like, okay, it's over here. It's so sad. And surely Kate's gonna like find a way to present her problem to us in the regime that makes sense in our track. And she's gonna keep it really sweet so we can all keep this going.

As part of that, she's like asserting yourself of being like, first of all, I'm still here. And second of all, y'all are two. Okay. So get on board because the trains coming for all of us. I wish that I could just have bottled that speech and then play it at every social gathering. And that is a perfect summary of the like, because the inspirational genre is for people that we,

you guys talk about this all the time. The people that we pity and don't want to, you know, solve fundamentally relate or build the bridge to where they are. And, uh, yeah, this is part of, you know, what someone said one time to me was, I'm everyone's inspiration and nobody's friend. Yes. The grand pretending is that we are all not a breath away from the problem that irreparably changes our lives. And if everyone can live over here in the land of delicacy and precarity, then there's a lot more.

That is the thing that makes me scream. Thank you, Amanda. I think I had a conversation about that with a friend when your first, when your book came out because she had just read it and she said, I just can't imagine. And I was like, but you don't actually don't have to, like there's some things we have to imagine, but that's actually, this is a fact. You don't have to, that is the perfect thing to say. Yeah, you do feel like you're sort of breaking it to people gently where you're like, hey, I is real tying. We're all, we have moments of being resourced and lucky. And then the rest of the time we're not. Yes. And when we're not, we're going to want to remember that suffering is not an anomaly.

It's part of the grand continuum of our experience. And that you're not either bad or, you know, unlucky. You're just, you're just a person. Again, turns out. Talk to us about being a person and this pendulum and this ridiculous absurd thing we have to do, which is, you know, you just said, go through the pain and then go to a kid's birthday party.

We're in the midst of the very long holiday season. And you, my friend, are one of those crazy Christmas people. You actually get mad at other people who claim to be Christmas people. Yeah, amateurs. Amateurs. Amateurs. I'm a Christmas idiot. Thank you.

Okay. She's a Canadian. She's a Christmas Canadian. Okay. We're a different, different breed varsity. There's no care for Christmas. Yeah, we bring our own winter. But my dad is like the, my dad is the historian of Christmas, like written a bajillion books on the history of Christmas. So we like, we next level like someone's going to break in and do a show about the number of ornaments we have for goat research reasons. Tell us, Kate Polar, give us a full proof process for how one survives the holidays

when there is so much grief and loss and fear in all of us. And we are also being forced to be cheery and really like because that's just a good metaphor for all of it. but you still love Christmas. You love the holidays, so tell us how do we do it? Yeah, you could say I'm like adjusting my chair to like get serious. Yeah, she's like, put me on the podcast. Yes, yes, yes, finally, a question I've been waiting for. We have these intense and horrifying calcified scripts about how we're supposed to be and especially women and especially during a holiday where there's a way that we, you know,

we don't, you know, no one can tell the truth. We have the good linens out. And, and you know, I'm sorry that we lost people. We can't get back, but Antlinda's hair and good God. We're going to small talk. And of course, the second we're locked into the story of our lives, it's almost always not true. And the truth of our lives is that the moments of the holidays are like feasting and light and music is, and we do that

in the middle of the darkness because that's when we need it most. And it's not to say in our culture, which it does. It's all bright sides. No setbacks, just set ups. Everything's always, you know, doors closing and windows opening. And the holidays or any other time is like a great moment just to say, um, one, like what honesty is, is, is unacceptable here. What is, what honesty has been, been, been made socially awkward and could I just have a little more of it until like a lot of permission that like where there is joy, there's almost always sorrow. Like the way we sing a song that reminds us of our dad or the way we might see other people's kids gather around and we didn't get to have that kid or that relationship. Like the joy

is also like grief is like tucked right in its shadow and just letting ourselves be, have a thousand different feelings about the same day in the same day because, um, because the being crowded over onto one end of the emotional spectrum is something Americans are very good at. Apparently the only except the emotions are joy, happiness, optimism, the homeic app, which is actually really good. If you want to check off that you've seen all of the movies, which I do. But the reason why I love holidays or random bakeathons or parties or whatever is because life is so hard. It's like the second you get a moment of joy, just like take it. And if it isn't on the prescripted day, let it go. But like we need all, we need like like pain has

like scooped out something in us. And now great, now there's a big space that joy is going to fill. So I let it, I like go out of my way to pick big dumb things to be so thrilled about because I know the next day that might not be the day that I get to have, you know, the world's largest Santa Claus weaving in the wind in my lawn. God, I love that. So it's like, it's not, we celebrate because we're not sad. It's, we celebrate because we're so sad. Exactly. Because we're so so delicate and we get it for a minute and we should take it. Just take it. Kate, you say as a mom and a controlling human being, you really resonate with this, but and I'm sure that a lot of parents or maybe just human beings will, but the idea that

I am the center that must hold. I am the center that must hold. Do you still feel that? Is that a going back and forth to what is if we are not the center? I know intellectually, but I am not, I am not the center that must hold. Yeah, I'm not sure I know that in my bones. No, performatively. I mean, who's going to make sure we all have towels, right? Who's going to, who's going to remember that, you know, insert two million errands? It is so difficult to see the all the weight that you carry and not then imagine that life is not

possible if we're not doing that work, smiling that smile. I was pictured like turning the big wheel so that everybody else is watching, which sounds a little bit like the machine in lost, which turns out was for no reason. So an apt metaphor. You're totally right. I put myself in the center of a world, and then my world was ending. And I, it has been, and maybe part of that

is just the natural narcissism of love is where you can't live without me. And you can't live without me doing these things. But tragedy is the time when you're forced to rewrite all of the rules about how your ecosystem works because you don't get to have the pride of making sure everybody else's needs are met before your own. Like I have, it has humbled me in my view

of what I can even do in a day, but also just how much I really do need on other people and was unwilling to let anyone else carry it mostly because of them, you know, years of deeply and great pain, patriarchy, my unwillingness to carry me, to push my wheelchair, to pick up my kid. That was the worst. Like pick up my kid because I couldn't. And all those things felt impossible, but in there was a challenge to that story that I was always going to be the only person who could love. And having a bigger picture of that has been like an important truth that

has been hard for me to hear. Part of that reminds me of what you talk about a lot, which is this kind of uniquely American ideal of like you are limitless. Anything is possible and it's meant to be hopeful in liberating, right? Like go get them Tiger, but it becomes this kind of cage of rage. You mentioned rage earlier, and I'm fascinated by it because it's like when our reality crushes against that promise, we feel duped or shamed or and I've heard you talk about this in the context of recent, you know, this unprecedented time we've been going through where you said when you have less and less

and are expected to create more and more, you just have to rage. Like what is that, this American insistence that everything is still possible while the ladder is being pulled out from under us in many different ways, what does that do to us? And how do we replace it? How do we replace it?

Three sets. Yes, we'll get to this. Yes, the cable for the next webcast. Three sets. It's all proud of my skin, right? So it makes us into self-help monsters. Kate! Oh my God.

Kate, I know. What is it? I know this. I only trust Kate Boller and a couple other people. And I still, if you give me a Buzz, Queen Buzzfeed quiz on six ways to make me fixed and happy, I'm taking it. I'm taking it. I bought one in the airport the other day. I mean, you cannot pry them out of my hands. It's because it's in every genre. We are sold a story of unlimited agency, unlimited power to choose in every area of our life.

Oh, is your inbox out of control? Try the, I just bought the happy inbox. There's a whole management, there's a whole management strategy. You haven't tried. Are you and our inboxing? It must be happy. Oh, we've got to be.

They've got to be the riled. And then have you not applied these same principles to health and wellness and your and the last smoothie regime? And have you detoxed recently and have you have you've appropriately mastered your mornings? Time to. and then like insert 200 books I have previously purchased. And I'm like, there's like a plan for the excellent perfect. The mom, the partner, the the boss lady, I mean, we can do it in every area. And the lie is that you can always fix your life. Anything, your life is just a series of choices. Just add them all up.

And if the, if the sums are too hard and you can't get there and it's impossible, it's only because you haven't done small enough actions. There's always tomorrow. And like it sounds very empowering because in so many ways we do all need to just take small little steps. But the big lie is that we are masters of our destiny when most of the things that happen are the things that happen to us and most of the solutions are not individualistic solutions.

They're better policies. They're the end of medical bankruptcy in this country, they are structural solutions to the evils of racism and sexism and phobias, which we've seen enshrined into the codes that build our society. None of those are gonna make it into the seven steps to, gosh, anything. And dying. And as three white women, None of those are gonna make it into the seven steps to Gosh anything

And end as three white women. That is one of the hallmarks of white feminism too That all we need to do is get a few of us higher and so let's just keep Let's just keep like plugging and plugging away and optimizing ourselves Right instead of yeah looking at the policies that screw everybody. Yes. We have to, of course, work and think structurally about how change happens, and also, we have our regular dumb days. And so we can't say nothing is possible, and we can't say everything is up to our agency. We do have to find a really gentle, culturally appropriate language for limited agency.

And I find it, people don't love it because it sounds realistic. But I think it's the work of hope. It's just small, small, durable, beautiful hope. Kate, can you add that to your new line of signs? Like, can we get rid of everything as possible? And can you add a few things are possible? That's the sign I want.

A few things. I love it. I find it incredibly liberating because when you say anything is possible, it means the fact that I see you not doing everything means you're just not trying hard enough. Right? But if you, but if I say to myself, it is literally not possible for me to do all the things for my kids that I'd be doing if I didn't have employment. And it's literally not possible for me to do all the things I'd

be doing over here. If I have these two things, like that is possible for me to do all the things I'd be doing over here. If I have these two things, like that is freedom for me. I could just say, it's not possible. A few things are possible. I'm going to prioritize in my life the things that I that are important to me. And I'm going to say I'm going to do these things. And then I'm going to say to the rest of the world, that also means I'm not going to do these other things. Yes. Because it's the impossible. Yes.

And there is a very boring, very boring virtue that, because I was like, what is the, what is the wisdom to choose there? Like what's that called? And hilariously, the virtue is prudence. Prudence is apparently the wisdom to choose. And like what a great delightfully funny, dirty sounding gift we all need right now. It's like, how would I know? Prudence.

Sissy, you're such a prude. I've always been such a prude. This is really coming together for me. God. I love that. I love it too. What you just said about the how everything in life is these series of choices, you know, like that that's the we're also living by this myth too, often our experiences that most profoundly affect us are the ones we never chose at all. Like that those are the things and so I I'm just wondering, you say, I

didn't, I had to, I'm trying to remember, I had nothing to do, but survive the feeling that some pain is for no reason at all. Does that feel to you in your bones, like a freedom? Does that feel cruel and crazy making? Yeah. What does that feel like when you, especially in a culture that tells us that every pain is a reason, every bit, it is making us stronger. It is showing us the light. Like, we must believe that.

It's a balance sheet. It's a balance sheet. You're losing it over here, but over here, you're going to get this other thing. The grid gain. The net's out balance sheet. You're losing it over here, but over here, you're going to get this other thing. The ring game. The ring. That's out. That's out. That's why I do love it when people rewrite cultural cliches.

Like, what doesn't kill you? You know, makes you stronger. And people have given me ones like, what doesn't kill you? We'll try again tomorrow. And I like that so much. But also Kate, don't you think it's a way of keeping us in our place, too? Because like, I'll never forget just talking to a bunch of women who had Survived sexual assault and almost all of them said, but I'm stronger now

I'm stronger now or like you know a few people who were abused by their parents, but I'm stronger now And I would be like but imagine how strong it'd be if you hadn't been abused. Yes like what if I think it is one of the the hardest burdens that we put on survivors of anything is that we force them to say and I'm glad that I learned or that I'll never go back because or it made me who I am today. And I think all of those are sometimes And I think all of those are sometimes, I mean, in there, and this is like the needle to thread, right, is like, there are hard glittering, terrible truths, things we learn by going through genuinely awful things.

And I want to celebrate each and every one of those bits of like incredibly hard one bits of wisdom. And simultaneously, never, ever ever ever say that there is any math that is in any way going to compensate for what has been robbed from people. I didn't know that until I was part of a clinical trial that I thought was for my betterment. I thought that I was getting the same treatment that somebody else would have gotten. I thought I was getting cutting edge, that is certain, because I was always a Lang, and I'm so lucky. Everybody, doctors, nurse, everybody, I'm so lucky. And then in the end, to find out that there was all kinds of protocols, chemo,

things that brought my organs to near toxicity, that were for the sake of the experiment and were never for my betterment. And they never would have told me that if I hadn't gone bananas researching it to say, wait, are you saying that this was for you and not for me? And I want to be able to say something true about the fact that my life was saved, that one of those drugs was great for me, that I'm so grateful. Thank you so much for the resources I am, and in some very narrow way that I'm lucky, that I will never, ever accept when people say that,

aren't I so glad that, and we didn't make it okay that when I was, you know, used for purposes that were not my own. And like, can we just have a system where both things can be true at the same time? So Kate, I have for a very long time known that I live on this kind of horizon living world where I'm always looking beyond, always working for that but never ever arriving. So not living. And I had never had the words for it until I read how you were talking about how your favorite topic is possible futures. Yay. Just going.

Let's go. Yeah. And how you realized that when you really thought about it wasn't the problem wasn't the not stopping to smell the roses, but you said it's this. Failing to love what is present and deciding to love what is possible instead. No. Failing to love what is present and deciding to love what is possible instead. I, I've never heard anything that described my feeling before.

And I love the way that you described it because it really does feel like love. It's confusing to have it because you're tending to that thing. You're nurturing it. You're loving it into existence. You are loving, but you're just loving the thing that is never the thing in front of you. And I, yeah, I just really want to honestly ask you, like did you ever figure that out? And you all, so what's the balance?

Because how do you figure it out? Like for example, that study, like if you had just loved what was present and not dug your heels in and tried to figure that out, you wouldn't have saved yourself from that situation, right? So like how do we know what that's right? That's right. Let go of and what to not let go of.

Yeah, yeah. Force us. Yes, that, oh my gosh. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I I'm really feeling you get where you're just kind of like reaching reaching reaching reaching. I'm never I am always except. I mean, Kate, we were, we had someone come over into our house and was like, you buy this new boiler for your home, you'll never have to get another boiler. And I sat on the stairs and I wept

because I was like, no boilers come after this boiler. It was like, uh, but I'm always for the next. It's what's the next, what will be our next thing? And I realized like, the next boiler, like, this is how I'm living my life. Yes. It is the next plan. I have our title, which is fuller on boilers. But I, but that is what I feel like I'm doing and loving my bucket this now by preparing a future for them. But I never with them in, I don't know how to, I don't know how to sit there. I love what is. I don't know how to love what is because I'm so busy creating what will be the thing that will be love next. Yeah. Yeah. We're it's this weird. It's this very strange thing we all have where we're handed a whole pile of minutes and then there's every now and then they transform into moments and those moments are like

stretchy and taffy and transcendent and gorgeous and they're always filled with. For me, someone doing something very dumb, always someone's always yelling in mind and like someone is just there's like a heightened, there's like a heightened gorgeous moment. You feel like the whole world that you could just pause for a second just to watch you catch a breath. And like those, and then, you know, and then we're stuck with minutes again, or just a garbage regular in traffic in box minutes. And I think part of the difficult kind of frustrations we have every day is like, well, we know that we can't just turn all of our minutes into moments. That's the version of be present that I think is absolutely bullshit.

And just another wildly inappropriate standard to set where like, you have to be present that I think is absolutely bullshit. And just another wildly inappropriate standard to set where like you have to be the transcended, you know, partner and nature gaser and etc. And like it's just it is not possible to do. I can't even be a party role. Money rolls is a Nature's a partner Come on. No endless rapturous awe at life itself. I'm sorry. It well-dapened. No one can do it I'm sure we've all that one person like maybe you but not even them Yeah, it's not possible and like because then and then we get you know Transactional. Okay, what if I just add up all my minutes? Then they'll become moments.

And that unfortunately is also not true because people are magic, and moments are magic, and then they come, and then they go, and we don't even always know when in a day. Like, don't you feel it in a day? There's like a minute, like, there's just where everything is alive and bright.

Yes. And then it's, you know, it's just fireflies, just blinking alive and bright. Yes. And then it's just fireflies just blinking on and off. And we want so much to control it and we want so much to predict it. And it sounds like Amanda would be nice if you could also just count it and line them up and then make sure there's just always going to be more of them. Part of that was taken away because I had to stop using future tents for a couple of years. I could never say we will. And that to me felt like I couldn't speak a language that everybody spoke and that used to be my favorite. It was like my mother tongue was like, hey, maybe we could,

what about in the summer we would? And I was like, could be drunk on it, just the tomorrow's. God, I love tomorrow. And, but I knew I couldn't just live in today because today sometimes it's like super shit blood work and estate planning or just like a PTA meeting. Like things I just truly hate. And so all of the conventional wisdom about how you can solve the problem of pain by being in the present.

I think we just have to agree is like just wonderful and completely, completely alive. It is the mindfulness will not make us less human. Mindfulness will never make us less. I just always think of hunger, but less like we're going to starve to death just with the sheer want of more I think we will feel like that until we die and I think it is okay because it means we are alive And though we know what love is there's never enough So yeah, I really hear what you're saying about even down to the dumbest boiler

The idea that it is finite breaks our fucking hearts. And that I think is just, because all we want is more. And so, because of all of that, our next right thing is going to be from boiler boiler herself. Our next right thing is going to be from boiler boiler herself. This, I think I'm gonna get, I think I'm gonna get this right

because I've read both of your books many, many times over, but there's this scene when you've seen, not a scene, it's an actual situation. Oh my God. They're all to add, Abby, Abby, baby, remember the scene from the soccer game? She's like, now that that was a real life. Okay.

Um, you come out of surgery. You're still a little bit high on your pain meds. Okay. Bowler high on pain meds. You can read it just for that. You say this, okay. You come out of surgery. You're surrounded by the people you love the most

friends, family, and you Basically to me what I read it as is that you basically offer everyone a benediction in that room, okay? You tell them the truth of things because you have no more time for untruth Okay And because you're a hacker. So, so this is when this then addiction is from Kate Bollard, but it is for everyone listening. Okay?

Because the truth of what Kate is telling us today is all of our shared reality. Okay? Which is that we don't know how much time. So here you go. I'm sitting with a beloved friend. Oh my dear one, it's time. It's time to go. You can leave your career. Yes, it's still undone. The work here is still undone. But if you stay here, a bitterness is going to eat up everything I love about you. If you don't go, I will hate you forever. up everything I love about you. If you don't go, I will hate you forever. A colleague is sitting beside me and I am, for a reason I can't later remember, telling him what to do. You can't be happy unless you forgive them and set them aside. There is no way around it, buddy. You have to forgive.

I save my most horrible love for Chelsea, my rock, my friendship twin. The nurses are changing my bandages and I have my phone pressed hot against my ear. Chelsea and I are trying to talk but there is too much to say. I think I'm running out of time, honey, I say finally. I'm not trying to be dramatic but here's what I worry about. What if you are too? She knows what I'm saying. She's working harder than anyone I have ever known but her selflessness has caused her to surrender too much of herself to some day. And now some day has come, at least for me. I have to go, I say finally.

I've got to adjust my meds. But we just sit there clinging to goodbye before I say it last, go live your life, shells. All these words I am tripping over are benedictions, live unburdened, live free, live without forever's that don't always come. These are my best hopes for you that you press forward at last. Kate, fucking bowler.

Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm so bossy when I'm dying. I'm really insistent. You are an honest dream come true on this Earth of ours. We adore you. Had squad. I love you. When life gets hard, don't forget. You can do a few hard things. Not many. Not many. Not many. I have to tell you the damn truth.

Maybe one is zero. We love you, Kate. And don't worry, we're coming back with Kate on Thursday. We're not letting her go. Oh, I love you. Thank you. I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlyle. I walked through a fire. I came out the other side. I chased as I made sure I got once And because I'm mine, I want the line

Cause we're adventurous and heartbreak So now a final destination That will stop asking directions Some places they've never been And to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find our way back home And through the joy and pain That our lives bring

We can do a heartache I hit rock bottom it felt like a brand new star I'm not the problem sometimes things fall apart and I continue to believe the best people are free and it took some time but I'm finally fine Cuz we're adventurous and heartbreak A final destination They stopped asking directions So places they've never been Come to be loved, we need to be known We'll finally find our way back home

And through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do hard This perfect, sure isn't hard, race on by We might get lost, but we're only in that Stop that skiing directions Some places may've never been And to be loved we need to be long We'll finally find our way back home

And through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do hard things Yeah, we can do hard things Yeah, we can do hard things We can do hard things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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