Kate Bowler | Is Joy Possible When Things Are Difficult?

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:01]We're living in challenging times.

[00:00:04]Is it possible to feel joy when things are so difficult?

[00:00:07]>> Joy is for you at any time because it reminds us that it is so good to be alive and that our lives and our communities and our world is so worth loving.

[00:00:21]>> For our first episode of Staying Human, I talked to Kate Bowler, the author of Joyful. Anyway, as a professor of religious history, a parent, and a cancer survivor, she's a lot of wisdom about how joy shows up in our lives.

[00:00:35]>> Joy is kind of a mystery. It can coexist with the worst circumstances. It can show up at a funeral. It can be there, like in my life, often in hospital rooms.

[00:00:48]>> Joy isn't meant to be a constant state.

[00:00:51]>> Joy is always a surprise. Like if we could schedule it, we would put it on Tuesdays, which generally suck.

[00:00:58]>> Moments of joy are accessible to all of us if we can only find a way to stay open to it.

[00:01:05]>> Joy is free. We just have to find a way so that we understand our own weird math of what surprises us.

[00:01:14]>> I'm Dr. Vive Morty and this is staying human.

[00:01:20]Hi everyone. Thanks so much for joining me this very first episode of Staying Human. I created this podcast as a space to explore how we can live more fulfilled, more meaningful lives. And one question that's been on my mind is whether joy is possible in the hard moments of life. I'm coming off a period in my own life in which I had finished my time in government and my family was really looking forward to starting a new chapter. And then out of the blue, two of my loved ones were diagnosed with cancer at the same time. It was a lot for our whole family. And yet, we also still wanted to find ways for us to tap into joy, especially for our kids. So, I started to think about this question of finding or cultivating joy amid moments of real difficulty and even sorrow. Not in the sense of being falsely upbeat or pretending that everything's okay when it's not, but as a way to sit with and honor what feels so hard and find joy anyway. So, what does this even look like? Especially now with so much that's happening in the world that's hard. How do we find joy?

[00:02:30]My guest today is Kate Bowler, a best-selling author known for her writing around loss, grief, and hope.

[00:02:37]She's a professor at Duke University who studies a history of religion and she hosts a podcast Everything Happens.

[00:02:45]Kate's also someone who has survived stage 4 colon cancer and she is one of the bravest people I know. Her latest book is called Joyful Anyway, and it's a beautiful, uplifting read. For me, Kate is more than this. She's also a dear friend and truly one of the funniest, kindest people you'll ever meet. She's the kind of friend who will come to town to take you to a basketball game when you're going through a hard time just because she knows how much you love the sport. And that's exactly what she did for me and for my family.

[00:03:17]We cover a lot of ground in this conversation. We talk about how joy is very different from positivity or happiness and how it can exist even amid great struggle. We also get into how constantly seeking to optimize our lives can actually hold us back.

[00:03:32]I'm excited to share our conversation with you.

[00:03:36]>> Kate Bowler, my friend. Welcome.

[00:03:39]>> I'm so glad to be here. Hello.

[00:03:42]>> Hello. I'm so glad you're here, too.

[00:03:44]Just seeing you makes me smile and brings me joy, which is what we're going to talk about today, actually, which is joy. But I'll tell you this, Kate. I've been wanting to talk to you for a while now about today's subject because I've been you know I've been going through a lot as you know like in our family in terms of health issues and a lot of unexpected challenges that we've had as a family in the last few months and I've been thinking that you know when you when you go through something hard that you start hearing from all kinds of people like in your life who are also going through hardship and it has just felt to me that there are so many people uh who are holding a lot right now and who are just struggling with how to find joy find a reason to be hopeful and optimistic in their lives in the world and that's why I think this conversation is really timely because you've explored this question of how we can find joy in life and not to think of joy as something that we do after you know the hard stuff is over the suffering has passed >> but it's something that we find a way to do simultaneously but I want to start this conversation by asking you when was the the last time you felt joy and what was the reason for it?

[00:04:57]>> Well, I it's such a fun question because joy is always a surprise. Like if we could schedule it, we would put it on Tuesdays, which generally suck weekly speaking. But I I just think it's amazing the way that joy shows up in a very unexpected moment. And I would say the last time I experienced joy was with you. It was in the last couple weeks I got to meet your family and we went to a Duke game and watching it was like Duke versus Michigan in this big ridiculous arena and looking over and watching you move from intense concern like microscopic alarm in which you were like trying to direct the players with your mind to like delirious elation in like the course of 5 seconds. honestly completely put me over the edge. I couldn't stop laughing. So, yeah. And I think that's really funny, too, cuz joy is socially contagious. So, truly, your joy made me joyful.

[00:06:02]>> Oh, that is so sweet. I so appreciate that. That was such a special moment for my family. You know, at a time when things were tough, I remember you sending me a text that said, "I am taking you and your family to a basketball game."

[00:06:16]And you not only did that, but you flew to town to take us to this basketball game. And my kids had never uh like seen that kind of game before and been so close and like could had a chance to just like go through that experience of seeing what live sports is like uniquely. It's such a gift that it gives to us. But you know, at the end we came back at night and I sent you this picture of my son like totally passed out on the bed like afterward. Um, but he woke up the next morning and he and my daughter, this is like all they could talk about. Um, because it just and seeing them excited made me joyful.

[00:06:52]Being able to sit with you and experience that made me joyful.

[00:06:55]>> Well, that means so much to me. I just you going through an awful time and just in in these like seasons where things come apart sometimes we need our our joys to be extra loud and we don't know when joy always shows up but I do like thinking of joy as like a big interruption and it just has to like barge into the room and I think that comes as a surprise to a lot of people who are like soft-hearted dogooding especially caregiving types who are looking at the headlines right now and being like, "Now's joy is actually not appropriate." Like, "This is actually not a good time to be joyful. Thanks so much for suggesting it." Because we're feeling like the fragility of our institutional structures. We're seeing the norms of civility and kindness and connection breaking down. We feel division in our own families and communities. And we think like joy would be for delusional people or for the very cruel who don't care what's happening in our world. And I I think it's it's just a good place to begin that joy is for you at any time because it reminds us of the stakes of all of it. That it is so good to be alive and that our lives and our communities and our world is so worth loving and it's joy actually that has to come in maybe even in the middle of the apocalypse and not in spite of it.

[00:08:23]>> Yes.

[00:08:25]And you know in in your book uh which is joyful anyway and which I just absolutely loved. Uh every time I read your work I think oh how could I like as much as I like the last piece of writing but you managed somehow to to keep putting out writing that inspires and that uplifts and and makes me laugh also. Uh and and this book really gave me chills at many points. I'm going to quote some of the lines that gave me chills. And I mean chills not in a I was septic and infected kind of way but more like chills like I was like deeply >> septic.

[00:08:56]>> I was like very inspired and and hopeful uh when I read your words and they really rang true. Uh but one of the area terms you use is that really stuck with me is the ache. A ce ache.

[00:09:16]And you describe it as this this deeply human longing that can't be quenched with achievement or with a single relationship. And it's something that all of us experience. Can you say a little bit more about the ache?

[00:09:31]>> Oh man, it's it's wild that we don't have more language for it since every culture has had a word for it since the beginning of time. And I I I love the German term for it, which is zenooked, which is some kind of combination of longing and searching and unfulfillment and almost sweetness. Like we know there's something out there for us and we just can't find it. And that longing creates a hunger. And then we think, "Oh no, I'm I must be defective. I must not have found been happy enough with my life. I must not have written my gratitude lists. I might must not have been truly appreciative of the good things that have come my way. Cuz why else would I feel so achy? And for a really long time, I thought that I of all people should have figured out how to not be aching given that I'm like so truly deeply grateful for the life I have. I survived stage 4 colon cancer.

[00:10:33]the the life I've been given back to me is something I would have done anything to have. And yet, why is it that I still have this longing for a life that feels fixed and finished? And that's part of why I really wanted to think about what are these what what is better language for why we feel so unfinished and then like what do we do with ourselves now that we know we're like this and probably going to stay like this forever.

[00:11:05]I love that term unfinished.

[00:11:07]It it's a beautiful term and and the term longing which you use also really uh struck home for me. I I think one of the things that I was thinking about when reading how you described the ache is sometimes okay for me sometimes when I feel that ache sometimes I feel like gosh I have so much good in my life why am I still aching right so there's a sense of like am I not grateful enough is that what the problem is >> um >> but you're describing it as something more deep and fundamental then that we have to that we all need that we need to look for and I realize that it that that ache wasn't something that was going to be satisfied by, you know, certain achievements or lines on a resume or uh, you know, by, you know, a certain income threshold. Like, you know, sometimes when I would check some of those boxes, it didn't really diminish the ache. And and when I was reading your description of it, I was just reminded that what I've you gave words to what I feel like I was seeing in many parts of our country and around the world when I was traveling these last few years when I was in government, which was this sense of aching, if you will, this longing for something else.

[00:12:22]And people could always put their finger on what it was that was missing. But intuitively they felt like there was something else that there had to be more >> Yeah.

[00:12:30]>> to life than what they were seeing before them.

[00:12:33]>> Yeah. And we get glimpses of how wholeness feels. We feel it when we have that beautiful friend who like gets us and knows what makes us laugh. We we have that feeling when we come undone and and people surround us in a moment that feels like grace. Like we we get that sometimes when we're looking at a sunset and we get this kind of transcendent lift where we don't feel alone in the world. Like we get moments of wholeness. We really do. And I wouldn't be teaching at a divinity school if I didn't think we got like moments of wholeness. But I I think that I I think that American culture in particular sells us the story that we are a problem to be solved if we still feel any kind of lingering hunger and and incompleteness. And they'll try to sell us that story through like a Valentine's Day story. You just have to find that one person. Or they'll sell it to us as a story of wellness. I hope you've optimized your morning routine.

[00:13:31]green drinks everyone. It's just we're always told that there is a project and that project is us and that tells us what we're capable of inside of a day, a week of your life. Can you conquer this project called the self? And for for everyone though in these 2 am moments, we we just know that that who we are is always going to feel like a heat-seeking kind of arrow, you know, and and we don't know what to do with it. And so I think just beginning with that place that like we're not defective just because we feel incomplete. But what is it then that we can do with this energy without just calling it bad? How about we just call it neutral and say like what then can I do with all of this want?

[00:14:23]>> Yeah, I like that. It's almost you're saying like to ache is to be human sense, right?

[00:14:30]I had this wonderful conversation with a priest named Father Ron. He says, and he was like, Kate, if Augustine said, I you know, we've we are we are restless until we find our our hearts rest in thee.

[00:14:42]He's like, but babies are born crying and we die crying. And it's crying a lot in the middle. And I kind of loved it because I was like, yeah, it does sort of feel that way. So if it's true that we will always want then maybe just what you're saying we're we're just human.

[00:15:01]What does this where can we point all of this gorgeous raw humanity if we can't be the great either the great American who's finished the good woman who never isn't grateful for her kids >> or just the unfinished middle-aged person which is probably me >> and me too right there with you Kate something that you have laid out so beautifully in your book is this trap that we keep falling into a trap that really I think has been pushed by this broader culture of optimization I would say has created a culture of overoptimizers right where we think that everything has a three-point plan a five-step plan something that can be fixed you know, to perfection. Um, but can we do that with joy? Is there a five-point plan for joy or do we just have to be open to it when it comes?

[00:16:00]>> Yeah. Well, I guess like the first thing it feels right to separate joy from just to understand like the species of joy is is is that it is different than happiness. Happiness, you actually can have a five-point plan for happiness.

[00:16:16]So, try it if you like. Um happiness as a sort of a distinct neurological phenomenon is is associated with feelings of ease with a a sense of pleasure that life has aligned in a particular way. The word happiness comes from the word hap as in happen stance as in like just stuff that happens to us.

[00:16:39]So a happy person is someone who's sort of like climbed a ladder of nice things happening to them. And um podcasts are a notoriously visual medium. So, I'll just continue to pretend to climb up a ladder as I describe this. But happiness is kind of like the view you get from the top in which you look around and and that actually is not it's it's possible to orchestrate. So all of that literature around like build a life that is all kind of different associations with being um statistical very often very light statistical associations between things in which people report being incrementally slightly happier and um and and and a broader sense of like creating emotional order out of the chaos of our lives. But there really is no three-step, five-step plan to joy because joy isn't about ease and it isn't about being lucky and nice things happening to you. Joy can is kind of a mystery because it can come in it it can coexist with the worst circumstances. It can show up at a funeral. It can be there like in my life often in hospital rooms.

[00:17:56]It's an incredible experience because it not only coexists with our stress system giving us these like wonderful dopamine like lovely experiences, but it's also this bright enlivening feeling that makes us feel socially connected.

[00:18:10]So it's it's far less about us doing well and much more about us feeling the everythingness of life in one moment that feels like a yes. And that makes that makes joy just like a very different animal than happiness.

[00:18:26]>> What you're saying is like I just want to underscore is quite countercultural in a really good way cuz I I do find that and I include myself in this group of people who over the years have gotten pulled in by the the lure and promise really sometimes often a false promise of the perfect life if you just follow X Y and Z plans. Right? It's this story of optimization that uh often ends up being a myth and you know often I found not only is a myth it leads to like more disappointment because you feel guilty that you haven't somehow you haven't done the steps well enough then why are you so unhappy and it just leads to this sort of terrible cycle but I I'm I find it particularly powerful coming from you because you you've been so public and generous in sharing your story about your personal journey going through illness and being diagnosed with stage four cancer and and while you you're married and had a child and having to think about you but also your family and somehow what I was so struck by is despite all of the incredibly painful and difficult moments that you went through, your book is full of these moments where you still managed in the hardest of moments to still find joy.

[00:19:38]>> And I found that to be so heartening and hopeful. Uh there's this beautiful story you mentioned I'd love for you to to share actually. It took place in the hospital.

[00:19:49]>> One of the things I've noticed is that if you want joy to show up, you have to say yes to what's happening. Even if what's happening is not what you would pick. So I was in the hospital room waiting to go home like bag packed, someone coming and this man, this doctor came in. Knock knock, he said. And I was so irritated with him because I'd met him earlier that day and he had supervised some junior doctors who had um weren't paying attention and had really taken a couple layers of my skin off and removing tape too quickly and I had these like thin raw stripes all over my stomach and I had tried to say, "Hey, I just have sensitive skin, but" but they were busy talking to themselves and this man was supervising and I was just exhausted from the misdiagnosis and feeling like it like it didn't matter what I said or who I was that that whatever medically was going to happen to me. So, knock knock he said at the door. And when I saw it was him, I was so irritated. And he came in and he said, "Hi, we're going to discharge you, but first I have to remove this tube from your stomach." And I looked down at my normally like just under like it was just my regular it had a bandage from the surgery, but that was just my stomach as far as I was concerned and nothing was in there. And I was like, "I'm sorry, what? I'm just about to go home, sir. And you will not be sorry, what?" And he was like, "No, we have to take out this um surgical drain um that's left over." And I just first of all, I looked around and it was like, "Something's on TV. It's an utterly normal room. There's no one else there."

[00:21:29]I'm like, "Sorry, you're going to remove something from my stomach here in this totally normal room right now." I looked at him and like I just hated him. I hated him. I hated what had happened. I was so angry. And finally, I just suddenly had a good idea. And I was like, "Actually, I think I would feel better if you pretended to do a magic trick."

[00:21:51]He was like, "What?" And I was like, I was kind of like, "Ouch you go. Come on back in." And so he like comes in his hands up cuz he had to like go wash them and now they're clean. He's like, and he's like, "Knock knock. I'm here to do a magic trick." Like it was such an insane circumstance. And then he he kneels down beside he was like ready to pull and he gave me the perfect description. I love it when doctors give great descriptions. He said, "You're going to feel a deep pinch and then you're going to feel a hard pull." And so he rearranges all my gown. I close my eyes and all of a sudden I felt what felt like an anchor being pulled out of the bottom of the seafloor. It felt insane. And then when I looked up, then when I opened my eyes, there was this doctor holding what appeared to be 200 million feet of tubing. And he was entirely covered with my blood.

[00:22:48]>> Oh my goodness.

[00:22:49]>> Had forgotten to like turn away in the right way. And then he's standing there looking insane. And he just goes, "Tada."

[00:23:00]And I just cried. I was laughing so hard in that one moment. We both couldn't stop laughing. You have this feeling like you're both people again. Like all it's like the nothing's forgiven and all is forgiven. And I I just find in these moments, these surreal, ridiculous moments, you can undo a lot of hurt if you say yes to the reality that you're living in and you just find another way to make somebody else say yes to you.

[00:23:30]you're going to find like a little magic trick happens and I'm pretty sure it's joy.

[00:23:36]>> Oh my gosh, what's such a beautiful story. I can imagine that was probably the first and the last time that he was ever asked to do such a thing.

[00:23:45]>> You know, he comes to my events now. We see each other.

[00:23:48]>> Really?

[00:23:49]>> Yeah. He was He's obviously Yeah, he comes to my events now. We're good buds.

[00:23:54]So great.

[00:23:56]>> I love that. And a friendship came out of it, too. How about that? Well, because you know, I didn't realize like he's supervising a million people. At that time, I really had no understanding about what it would be like to be a medical professional with a lot of stress. On the other hand, I think he'd kind of forgotten what it was like to feel utterly helpless and that. And so, I I I think we both came to an understanding.

[00:24:19]>> I love that. There's something else that I I found somewhat counterintuitive and counterocultural about what you what you say in the book, but I really love it.

[00:24:28]It was the idea of finding joy in the everyday and in the mundane. And the reason I found this so striking is I think there's so much that we see especially in advertisements but just more broadly in the narratives we hear in society that tell us that you know if you really want to find joy you need to do something big like go on that big vacation buy that new car like you know do something big you know and that's what's going to bring you joy >> and you push back against that notion and say actually no there is joy is often most powerful when it's found in the everyday can you say more about >> where we find that joy and how to access it in the everyday.

[00:25:06]>> Sure. And I will start by saying that most everyday things should not bring you joy. And especially women are told to like make laundry sacred. And if you're not finding laundry to be sacred, good for you. It isn't for me either.

[00:25:18]It's awful and it's stupid. But we get fraught with this. And this comes from a misreading of these gratitude studies.

[00:25:25]This the studies on gratitude and I encourage anyone to look them up show that gratitude has limited usefulness.

[00:25:31]which is to say we name a couple things at the end of the day that remind us the goodness of our life. Great. If we pile on, we have then confused gratitude with self-mastery and we will be fraught with endless guilt that we don't feel the magic of our everyday. So let's just say first of all most of the day is not magical and it is not even joyful and they're not even micro joys. Like I don't even believe in micro joys. I think you could there that's just called small delights. Good for you. clut there is the ability I really think people especially if um they're unhappy in their life and they think well if I were going to be joyful I'd have to blow it up I'd have to go to Maui I'd have to be on a river cruise somewhere like joy must be really expensive the good news is that happiness is expensive if you want to be really happy it's it's going to cost a lot of money but joy is free and joy is actually available to all of us even in a very brief period of time. We just have to be find a way so that we understand our own weird math of what surprises us. And it's not going to be the same for every person. Like I am, as you know, Vic like a little bit of a weirdo. Like I love taste testing ketchups or if you were I No, I just we could taste test anything. It would be We could do pads next time. Like six pads. Stack that up. I if you had time, I would force you to go see like random roadside attractions out in the greater DC area >> and then we would get to know what caused them to build the third largest fire hydrant. Like that stuff kills me.

[00:27:14]I don't know why. I think that boondoggling myself, like making myself get lost for an hour and finding something dumb is one of the funniest, fastest ways I know to be surprised because unfortunately most of the things that we're taught about how to be effective in our lives and this is especially true for all of us who are I mean there's 130 million Americans who are caregivers like most people are taking care of someone else so they don't have unlimited time to do that.

[00:27:44]Well, it typically makes us very organized, gets us in our routines, and makes us more and more available typically to um structure and often technology cuz that's our jobs.

[00:27:57]>> It is actually very hard to be surprised when you're in these hyper routines. And so, we have to find a way to like chin up, look around. So the first the precondition to joy is then being present enough to to to to experience your life. But then you got to figure out how to make yourself surprised.

[00:28:16]That's tricky. But mine is that I try to find a way to kind of like figure out what the joke is wherever I am. Like is it the what is it called when they take your blood? Is it flim flabbotomy?

[00:28:33]>> Phabbotomy. I hate I hate getting my blood taken. It really creeps me out.

[00:28:38]>> But if I can pretend that and I was in this like windowless room in the hospital, so I just pretended that the man was a vampire who was left alone and wanted to be wanted my blood for his own purposes. I accused him of all kinds of things until we both started laughing.

[00:28:53]Like that's a good day, but it means that you have to say yes and it means you have to allow yourself to not know what's going to happen.

[00:29:05]And those are two things. Being present and allowing yourself to say yes despite the uncertainty. Those feel like two things that the world is always conditioning us against. Like that it's always trying to push us to try to control more and create more certainty in our lives. And there are all these forces that are stealing our attention.

[00:29:24]>> Yes.

[00:29:25]>> Away as well, right? Which makes it hard to be present. So if I'm listening to what you're saying, I would almost come to understand that there are moments of joy potentially throughout our days that we may just overlook either because we're not present or because we're not able to be to be open in that moment to it.

[00:29:41]>> I think so. And I I think that joy is something that we can have as a regular feature of our life without it costing a lot. And also it can get I there's a kind of person I think that can be joyful and I see it like a personality and I love it when I meet that person and it's almost like joy makes them younger and younger >> like cuz they're just so insanely delighted by small stupid stuff. Like my role model for this is my son Zach who is ridiculous and he has a metal detector which I hate cuz it brings tetanus basically threats into my home all the time and it makes him kind of a hoarder. But when I'm and I'm like laundering rocks all the time but when I take something out of his pocket it'll be like a little tab like a little drink tab and I'll be like gh can we throw this out? And he'll be like mom Dr. Pepper, the greatest drink of the day.

[00:30:44]He's just could not be more thrilled.

[00:30:47]And he's always trying to explain to me, and these categories make me laugh because they're not bad to like have it in my own life. What's trash? Like, just get rid of it. What's junk? You didn't think it was for you have, he says, junk is something you have to find a different job for. And I really like that. So, maybe there's some stuff in our life we need to find a different job for, but the other is treasure. and that kid can find treasure anywhere. And I find that to be hilarious and deeply moving.

[00:31:18]>> I'm so glad you are reminding me of this because, you know, I've been struggling with my kids to some extent with them keeping too much stuff right around the house.

[00:31:31]And I think you may have even seen this when you came over recently, but um you know, I feel like we have been overrun by stuffed animals and by chachkis and by Legos and all manner of things that well-meaning friends feel inspired to give to our children. And I am trying to figure out how to get rid of a lot of this so that we can, you know, have some >> you know, just have a home. Yeah. and and not like a a storage ground.

[00:32:03]>> And so I I the other day I was, you know, going through some laundry and reach into my son's pocket after, of course, the pants come out of the wash and the dryer and I find like these stones and some branches. And he is like notorious for he collects stones, he collects branches, small branches, very large branches are so big they won't even fit in our car. and refuses to part with any of them. They're all sacred to him. And I was starting to get frustrated in my effort to just like, you know, manage the chaos. But you're reminding me that actually that it's such a gift that they find joy in that.

[00:32:43]And if I could do something as a parent to make sure that my kids as they grew up >> still maintain that muscle, if you will, that instinct to find joy in the ordinary, to see like some source of wonder, you know, that most of us may pass over. I think that would be such a beautiful >> uh skill for them to hold on to. I think there's something about the way that they love these objects or love this is is it just reminds me like joy isn't just you know nice things. Joyy's a story and I think the story they're living in that we want to keep living in is that the world is good and that that our lives are good in it and that it is full of things to discover and that what is what the your ability to notice a particular color or to make eye contact with that one person who knew how funny that was.

[00:33:40]Like all of this contributes to the greater story and it helps compete against the other story which is often louder and that's of despair. Despair will tell you every moment that nothing matters and you don't matter and your pain actually is just in a sea of other pain and who cares. There's this wonderful preacher Tom Long and he always says like, man, despair, despair and death, those are powerful preachers.

[00:34:02]Like, who is going to stand up beside that and and like sing a different song?

[00:34:07]And I think that's to me what joy has to do. It has to we have to let it be a story that's louder than all the other competing stories of destruction and alienation and despair and death.

[00:34:20]Oh, I'm your that word despair that you just mentioned that's that's sitting heavy with me because you know even since leaving my my time as surgeon general I I've continued to travel and I keep encountering that deep sense of despair that I was seeing when I was in office as well but it's accompanied now by something else >> which is disempowerment that there's this sense that I I get from so many people I meet across ages that they're not only feeling the weight of the challenges are facing their life, but they're also feeling the weight of what's happening in the world around them, whether it's conflict or division or polarization or the challenges of our politics or the uncertainty of the future, especially in the age of AI. All of this is piling on their shoulders, but this disempowerment now is compounding it because many people feel like gosh, what am I supposed to do in the face of forces that feel so much bigger than me?

[00:35:24]>> Yes.

[00:35:25]>> That's actually where I find your message around hope to be actually like radically empowering in a sense because you're helping us see that there are actually things that we can do in our day-to-day life that there are sources of joy in the everyday, in the mundane, if you will. Yeah.

[00:35:41]>> Um and that we have actually within us the ability to see those to be present as you said to say yes uh to experiences which may be surprising but may actually bring us a moment of wonder or laughter.

[00:35:55]>> I totally agree >> and that feels like a message we need for our times. what you were saying about the the disempowerment that really helps name something for me that I have been struggling to describe like because I'm in you know history and religion world we have some pretty good language around what um cultural fragility feels like we describe it as the apocalyptic and it's a great word because it helps describe how when we feel the fragility of our structures we feel the our future closing in we don't know how to act, but the urgency to act feels louder. And that's really great language to describe why we feel scared and how to make sense of that low hum of anxiety. But it's what you're describing about disempowerment. It has often just mostly felt like a like diet apocalypse, like all the apocalypse but half the calories because we don't really know how we're even interacting with all of these structures. And you know, we can watch USAD get stripped and and and and global health solutions we know to work to then be suddenly taken away and yet, you know, I can still get same day acne patches, you know, from Amazon. It's a very strange feeling that there are horrors everywhere, but they are unevenly dispersed and we have uneven experiences of empowerment around what we can do. And so this this the the volume of this weird apocalyptic feeling, it has to have a very real counterpoint. We need an answer to that that isn't just, you know, just fix yourself or only outrage because we we can't sustain outrage forever. We have to go back to a story that is also rooted in oh man just the way we're made and like we're made finite and a little helpless otherwise we wouldn't have all this skin on the outside. It's really a bad really a design flaw. We're very we're fragile little creatures and we need to look into our world and find our yes. And I just think that's why joy has such good it's got like three little cousins. I think how how do we know we're getting to a a yes that that great joyful yes is we start to feel hopeful.

[00:38:18]>> We start to feel grateful >> and we start to feel delighted.

[00:38:23]>> And these are good little signs that joy is growing in us and that and we should pursue that not and it's not trivial to need our yes. We need a yes in this world of no.

[00:38:35]Oh, I love how you put that. The cousins of joy. I love that.

[00:38:41]>> They're good little friends.

[00:38:42]>> Hopeful, grateful, >> and delight. Yeah.

[00:38:45]>> And what delights us or makes us hopeful or makes us grateful? I mean, this is what's so good is we got to dig into our own story.

[00:38:52]>> Yeah.

[00:38:53]>> We got to make joy our story by by looking into the eyes of the people that make us want to try.

[00:39:03]Staying human is a community of seekers.

[00:39:05]People like you and me who believe there's a different and better way to live and who are looking for it together. In that spirit, every episode ends with a reflection question for all of us. Your stories, your thoughts, your wisdom. That's what makes this conversation so rich. Please write us at hello@stayinghum.

[00:39:25]us. That's hello@stayinghum.

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[00:39:50]All right. So, can I confess something?

[00:39:52]Here's one of the challenges that I have had with joy in my own life. It has to do with guilt and guilt with not feeling like I'm necessarily deserving of joy or hey in my day I haven't ticked through my to-do list enough to be deserving of something joyful that day or I have not met my goals like for the year so I have to like you know beat myself over the head and like deny myself you know some joy until I actually meet those marks like how do we >> I'm guessing I'm not the only one out there who who feels some guilt around experiencing joy. But how do you deal with that sense of guilt or does this sound familiar to you?

[00:40:33]>> Yeah, I I think I think obligation there's a lot of task masters we have.

[00:40:40]Obligation is a taskmaster and that I mean that's just real like somebody's got to eat dinner. We probably have to make it. I mean anyone who's like thinks that we can tral la like rock through a field pursuing joy at all times like doesn't doesn't know when dinner is. Um you know and I'm happy for them. Um, so obligation is a real taskmaster. Um, ambition, which has beautiful parts to it, is also a taskmaster. We have the sense that we are being outpaced by something we can't quite name that we feel driven by.

[00:41:12]>> Um, >> I think uh, man, I'm >> being an immigrant kid is a big taskmaster. I mean, other people had it worse. I mean, I was surrounded by other people's difficult immigration stories growing up and I was really told like you I I feel it living in the States.

[00:41:29]Like if I'm going to live away from my family, I better make it worth it.

[00:41:32]>> So, there's all kinds of like forces that make us feel like joy is probably for someone else cuz actually it's my job to get a lot done. And just like regular low self-esteem, you know, easy breezy low self-esteem. There's always a reason to look into the mirror and to say like, >> "Wow, really? You thought you should have more than this?" Oh, well I mean surely we can name someone else who deserves it more and I'll do that now.

[00:41:56]So it's um it's I think that most of the time I mean and that's why working on this was so precious to me is most of the time I feel like it's my job just to be a manager of other people's happiness and that my my a day is a job. A day is an endless series of jobs until bedtime.

[00:42:20]Yeah.

[00:42:21]>> And and joy is one of the only ways and it's only just because it's like usually when I experience joy it's because it like broke down my door and I was like oh right this but it's those moments like there's a reason why when I look at the last 6 months the only things that rise to the surface are are typically moments of joy is because what else is going to give us like the big plot of our lives. So yeah, I I have been writing about joy and thinking about joy because I need more of it and if I don't go to find it, this life is is going to pass me by.

[00:43:02]>> Yeah.

[00:43:04]Well, that that is good. I mean, I imagine that there are a lot of folks like me who probably feel some guilt around their joy. So, this is so helpful to see it through the lens you're talking about as a deeply human need.

[00:43:16]Like we probably don't feel guilty about getting up to drink water when we're thirsty, even though we haven't finished our to-do list. We probably don't feel guilty about maybe getting a bite to eat, you know, at the end of a long day, uh, even if we're not done with our list. And, uh, I think if we think about joy as a core human need, uh, the way, yeah, >> water or or food are air, um, >> this actually makes a lot of sense to me. And it's not about being indulgent because I think what you're saying is right there. We all know that there are things that have to get done in life.

[00:43:47]Like you got to brush your teeth. At least I hope everyone does. You know, you got to like >> This is where all the Surgeon General's warnings are going to come out. You're like, "Actually, I have a list. One, drink less alcohol. Two, >> brush your teeth." Um, yeah. But, you know, I I I think that, you know, there there's something you did actually like a few weeks ago that um that kind of made me think more about this, which is that few weeks ago, actually, maybe it was a couple months ago when we were going through like a particularly rough patch here.

[00:44:19]You know, my mother and my wife had just been diagnosed with with cancer and the treatments weren't so easy. There were multiple surgeries like going on. There was there was a lot that was happening and it was one of the lowest points of my life.

[00:44:32]>> And I remember you called and you to check you checked in on me, but then you told me this incredibly funny story about a Christmas gift. And this story just made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

[00:44:47]And I realized afterward that I don't think I had laughed in like over a month. And I needed that. Oh wow.

[00:44:54]>> And so one of the great gifts that you gave me was the gift of joy.

[00:44:59]>> And it it has sort of in addition to making me just again once again so grateful for our friendship, it also has led me in this conversation to wonder how can we help bring joy to other people's lives.

[00:45:11]>> Yeah, that's nice.

[00:45:13]>> Well, it's funny cuz um I I think I remember because this is always the concern with friends. I remember calling and I think what I said was, "Do you want to talk about what's really happening cuz I'm very interested or do you want me to tell you a ridiculous story?" Because, you know, you want to be a good listener, but also I remember just being like, gosh, I can't report anymore.

[00:45:36]>> Like, I can't report. And so, for example, I have a friend that's going through a difficult series of surgeries right now, and instead of like, >> I don't know, I I just imagine she doesn't want to tell me about it. So, I've decided that every couple days I'll write her a description uh beginning at the beginning of the series of four Twilight books, which are each like 600 pages long. And I read them so carefully and have obviously memorized all the details. I'm like, "So, under near con constant cloud cover in Forks, Washington, like just tell her some totally unnecessary facts about a tween vampire story because like there's no reason for it." So, when we think of like how can we bring joy to others? One one way is to give the people things they need and give them food and babysitting and just like a checking in.

[00:46:30]The other way to make someone joyful though is I and I'm guessing the easier way is to give them something they don't need. Give them like if if the word dumb goes before it, it's probably a great idea.

[00:46:44]Just like like dumb movies, dumb stories, like ridiculous food. And it could just be like, "Hey, outside is the world's worst meteor shower. Let's go look." You know, it doesn't have to be special. it can be decidedly not special. And I I think the chaos of that just it makes me feel 17 again and just and doing things for no reason.

[00:47:12]>> And there's a funny I think the relationship there is absurdity.

[00:47:18]Let's just say doing things for no reason.

[00:47:21]>> It's excess. It's a protest against barely getting by. And anything extra reminds us that we are more than just our survival. We are more than just like flesh and bone. That we are actually like excess is what tips us back over into being a person. We think just like staying on the rails is going to keep us a person. But it's actually doing all the things that we don't need that reminds us that we are like so good and so stupid.

[00:47:51]>> Oh well. I got to say I think that there are few people who are able to use humor to bring joy to others the the way you do. And I I actually want you to talk about this for a moment because I think that when people are in need of joy in their lives and when we see that as our friends or co-workers or family sometimes it feels like too heavy to bring humor in.

[00:48:16]Sometimes it feels like I don't want to be irreverent or disrespectful. There's like a tragic situation. You're like, >> "Yes."

[00:48:26]>> But I I got to say, as somebody who's been the person often needing those moments of joy, sometimes it's those moments of irreverence that are everything. They're like the greatest source of joy, you're just like, "Oh my gosh, this is I needed something to talk about other than like incredibly heavy, difficult things that I'm contending with right now." Uh, how do you navigate using humor like as a a force for joy?

[00:48:50]>> Well, okay, I'm going to I'm going to tell you something about like even just going through the hard stuff where you can use humor with yourself and there doesn't even have to be an audience, but I actually super duper recommend this.

[00:49:01]Okay, if you want to feel more joyful in your life or you're going through something, the first thing that comes to mind is actually things are pretty miserable right now and there's all kinds of things that have happened to me that I would do anything for it to be taken back or for someone to apologize for. My best friend and I call that the list. The list is the And if you want to know if you have a list, just like be on an airplane and someone's like, "So, what's going on with your sister?" And then you just hear yourself telling that story. If this is a story that you repeat, if this story that you use as proof, it is usually like a painoint of a moment that you wish had never happened. So >> I one I think way to get to joy and to is to clear out resentment and one way to clear out resentment is to make an unbelievably hilariously specific resentful and petty list of every bad thing that's ever happened to you that comes to mind. And it sounds totally counterintuitive, but I find that we are so self-censoring when we get halfway through the story because we feel like we have to moralize or make ourselves feel like a good person or we don't want to say it was Linda when it was totally Linda. But like I find that if you name the names, if you write the whole story and like it can stop feeling like the whole story, it can start feeling like a chapter and chapters can turn >> well. So you say it's like being able to name it and um sometimes when you name something, the absurdity of it becomes clear. Um >> yeah, like for instance, I'll share something that's been on my list. That's a petty grievance. That's my um so when I was dying, I was trying to make arrangements for where I would be buried. And I imagined that I would be buried on my husband's family farm cuz there's this beautiful tree and this lovely plot where they work on the fields nearby. And I thought, well, in this way, I can get wrapped into a story that will go on and on and I won't feel apart from them. And I was very sad. And so I looked into the logistics and I found out that there's a guy in the local town named Abe. And if you call Abe, he and pay him $250 Canadian, he will bring a backhoe and he will carve out a space for you. And if you come from a good Menanite family like I do, they'll build you your own coffin. So you just bring your own bone coffin and then you get a you can really get that done for $250 or less. So, I kind of made that plan, that really sad, fragile plan in my own heart and mind, and I figured I would take care of the details later. Well, cut to a moment where my father-in-law has recently been told of just how affordable and convenient cremation is for some reason cuz he's so cheap. It he's like, I should call Kate.

[00:52:04]So, he's like, "Hey, Kate. um I got these uh you know I bought a plot for me and I bought a plot for for your your mother-in-law and now I just don't need all this space. And so here he was trying to sell me my mother-in-law's grave so that he could get back the $250 he spent on the grave. And I was like look you let's just let's see how this goes.

[00:52:30]Let's go together when I'm back in Canada. So we're touring the place and look around. Guess what? No pizzazz. His grave had like absolutely no curb appeal. And I was like, so I said, I don't want to be buried here. Why can't I be buried in the corner next to that nice tree? And he said, oh, absolutely not. And I was like, why? And he's like, we'd have to mow around it. Like it was deeply inconvenient.

[00:52:55]Laying down my mortal coil would cause him to need to take out the weed whacker. We had this huge argument over whether it would weed whack. So I was like, fine, fine. I'm going to buy the whole row and I'm going to plant my own tree. And he's like, "Oh no, we just mow that over." So yeah, when I made my own list of resentments, not being able to rest in eternity in the manner of my choosing absolutely went on the list.

[00:53:18]>> Oh my god.

[00:53:24]Oh my god.

[00:53:27]I don't even know what I would have done in that situation. I would have lost my mind.

[00:53:31]I like that he well the other bit was he was like by the way the price has gone up to 350 so it's really a deal like I'm going to bear you there myself >> oh my god >> yeah so that's something that someone else has for sure said on this podcast before >> okay we are breaking new ground Kate as we always do when we have you on which I Kate, I I I want to talk about rituals a bit. You know, you have I think from probably one of the earliest times I've met you, um I feel like you've had all of these little rituals in your life which you can't read about in a book or in scripture, etc., about like your own rituals that you have crafted and created to to make your way through life. Can you talk to us a little bit about >> the power and importance of rituals and especially about creating your own rituals in your life?

[00:54:42]>> Yeah. Well, I think um I mean ritual has an incredible place in storytelling. I think in our own minds if we can if we can make a way to sort of render solemn and out loud a transition in our life any kind of transition. I think it gives us it it like puts down a marker and it helps us remember next time we need to tell a part of the story you act as your own witness. I was there. It mattered.

[00:55:11]It meant something to me. And so I am I'm in favor of all kinds of rituals.

[00:55:16]Like um I one one really funny thing I like to do is throw a party called it was a big deal to me exclamation mark where like it could be anything. It could be like I finally switched therapists or like I had that horrible conversation or like I broke up with that whatever like uh and then you just invite everybody to come and like share what a big deal is to them in that moment. But um I think a really sweet one that really meant a lot to me was one my best friend helped me through when I was I was moving out of my home that I had lived through when I was you know when I had cancer. And >> you know when you move you sometimes just like put all your boxes in a new place and and then one story is over.

[00:56:01]And she just kind of realized I needed a minute to to kind just like put a stake in the ground about it. So, she brought me back to the house and she had like clipped off a couple tree branches and had a bucket of water and just to like lightly sprinkle with water and she was like, "Kate, let's just bless this house." And she knows that what I mean by bless is like it's that word that means imp placement like putting things where they belong. And so she just like stood in the room and said like, you know, for this is the place where I washed, you know, my gave my baby a bath in the sink and we had this fight about this and these people were here and this was beautiful and this was awful and like maybe maybe God let's just bless it all. So we went room by room until I sort of felt like rung out like a sponge and and it I feel I feel like I was able to remind myself of just I mean how we don't think our lives are momentous but like things are happening and just to get a get a feeling like this was a big chapter and a big moment and a lot of it was devastating and so much of it was beautiful but maybe let's just bless it I love that idea of being able to create your own rituals and to in a way that you describe so beautifully in the book to be able to put your experiences in a place to give them like a place a box in your life and to have something like a ritual that you attach a meaning to that allows you to process them and then move move through them, you know, or pass them. It doesn't mean you forget them, bury them, pretend they don't exist, but >> it just mean that you acknowledge them.

[00:57:39]And that that notion of acknowledgement, which you >> you speak to so powerfully in the book, I think is um I I found it to be very meaningful because when you wrote it, it almost seemed like it should be obvious to me. that you made the point that when we name things in our life or when other people name them for us, when other people witness our naming the challenges we have in our life, that that itself has meaning even if they don't solve that problem, even if the past can't be changed.

[00:58:10]>> Um, and it it struck me that this whole conversation we're having is at some deeper level. It's about how we can remain human like in a world that's often pulling us >> Yeah. in a different direction that's pulling us away from our compassion, away from being present, away from our kindness, away from our acknowledgement of other people.

[00:58:29]>> And this is about getting back to those core things that fundamentally make us human.

[00:58:33]>> There was this ritual that you're making me think about a ritual that I had when I was in medical training, which was um you know, in residency in particular, which are the years you spent after medical school, there's like really crazy intense years like you're working like a 100 plus hours. uh you're in the hospital where you know which is where people are very very sick so you're seeing extreme illness you're around death a lot like there's there's a lot happening and I remember I didn't quite know how to make sense of all of it like I mean I knew intellectually what was happening I knew the medicine of what was taking place but there's like an emotional and spiritual processing right of everything that you're witnessing uh a grappling with what that means for your own life a seeing of you know of yourself and other people like I remember one time the on I was on the oncology service and six of the patients that I had were all young people in their 20s who had metastatic gastric cancer >> and as somebody who was in his 20s I'm looking at them and thinking I could be looking in the mirror here so there's all of this stuff that's happening and I couldn't in the end figure out how to process it all but one simple small thing that I I did to help me make sense of or at least process death you know in in a better way is when I was called to pronounce a patient when they would had passed away. I would do the things that I you're supposed to do which is you know you check for a corial reflex you listen for you know for a heartbeat you listen for uh breath sounds for reflexes etc. But then after that was done and after I I had pronounced him, I would just sort of spend 60 seconds in the room in quiet like with my eyes closed just trying to imagine like the life that had just passed, trying to honor uh that life, trying to remember that that person had a mother and a father at some point. Uh probably had someone who loved them. Uh experienced joy and experienced pain. uh went through all of the ups and downs that we all go through as human beings and now that life had passed on and it was just 60 seconds all right that I would take to to do that to honor them in that way and to just to take that pause for myself honestly I needed it um it didn't change you know what happened to them it didn't bring them back it didn't there was like no procedure that I wrote in the chart or build for there was nothing of that just a simple 60-second ritual but I remember it came to be like almost a grounding practice for me like during my residency training and something that I felt like even the midst of all this chaos this 60 seconds at least can give me a little bit of meaning uh and it can feel like it it matters. So I I love you your the idea of being able to craft these rituals as simple as they may be for ourselves.

[01:01:19]>> Oh Vivic that's so beautiful and like it's very difficult to still ourselves.

[01:01:27]I know it's silly, but like whenever I think about rituals and I have like a, you know, theological training, so I have all kinds of historical religious imagination for this. But I mostly think about one of my best friends and I doing this thing we used to in high school. We called it magical doorway. And when something really awful would happen, we would like turn on a sprinkler or something like that. It was usually we liked it if there was water or even like a mist bottle. And we really wanted things to change. We would like describe the different person we wanted to be and we're just like, "Okay, I'm not going to care about this and be devastated by this anymore, which was mostly about us just saying it out loud to each other."

[01:02:04]And then we would say in a mysterious voice, "Magical doorway." And then we would like spray the water and we would walk through. We did it like this summer about something that she was like, one of us was like openly weeping and we made her run through a sprinkler yelling magical doorway.

[01:02:21]And I just think what we need is we're all looking for these these portals that say like that help us mark befores and afters, our befores and afters, other people's befores and afters. And I think we know in our hearts that that's sacred. So whether we're quiet or whe they're forcing someone crying through a sprinkler, like we know that it requires witness and it requires that we take our lives as seriously as they are.

[01:02:46]>> Oh, I love that word witness. The power of ritual. to also as you were saying bring us to be present like in this moment I think is very powerful because witnessing requires presence and as you said earlier like to be able to find those opportunities for joy also requires being present.

[01:03:03]>> Yeah. And I find like for myself, again, another confession, like like I want to be more present in my life and I work very hard at it, but I have lots of moments where I'm like distracted and I get sucked into multitasking, right? And I know I know that multitasking is less efficient. Like I advise people not to multitask because I know I'm less efficient when I do it. Yet somehow, like, you know, every now and then I'll find myself creeping in to or falling back into that old like, you know, mode of of multitasking. Um, and I'm probably gonna regret this, uh, which is how all great statements begin, but like last night was like a great example of this where, >> okay, >> I'm like trying to get the kids ready for bed, right? And they're like way off their bedtime schedule, so they need to get on cuz, you know, it's going to be a school day. So, I'm like trying to get them to bed. I'm like push them to bed.

[01:03:51]I'm also like like you know usually after my dinner I try to either walk or lift weights or do squats just like a very quick like for like five minutes just to like help with like you know blood sugar regulation it's can be helpful >> um as one does you know so at one point right I'm like yelling at the kids to like get into bed I am simultaneously brushing my teeth doing squats and listening to a YouTube conversation that you you had had in the past and I stopped in the middle of it was like the absurdity of this moment like what am I doing? This is crazy.

[01:04:31]>> But like >> oh my gosh >> and I was like let me just do one thing at a time. Okay, finish brushing my teeth, finish my squat, finish losing the cake so I can be more present in each of these things. But um but man, the pull of it can be quite strong.

[01:04:43]>> You are me. I am you. That is the most.

[01:04:47]Yeah. I um I think that we just want more to be more. And I think that the the relief the relief about joy is that it is pretty stripped down. It's a pretty stripped down gift.

[01:05:08]Like I have this kind of theory about why it's a gift. There's no good evolutionary reason for joy. This is what I always love about this sort of like very reductionist sort of flatearther idea of all human emotions where they're just like everything is supposed to somehow make us better and survive predators. But like joy doesn't, right? Joy is like actually going to make you stop doing your teeth brushing squats. And I think that we are given joy as as a divine gift in my opinion so that we can live like this. We can live in the paradox of being someone who feels like they need to sprint as fast as they can and they actually just need to stop and and watch it all and who knows that the world is full of great evil and yet is like very busy counting the eyelashes of their perfect child.

[01:06:01]and these like mysteries we're asked to live inside of this unfinished unfinishable world knowing that we have sometimes tremendous power to change things and then almost none at all like what how do we live with all these paradoxes and I >> I really think that we're given joy as a gift as just a reminder of the big story of like that we are good that this is lovely that actually what lights you up is is just was was like a through line for ever since you were the littlest form of you to whatever this version is like it's the great connector and the fact that joy is so I mean unlike happiness which is quite brittle and so a very socially fragile emotion that like joy is insanely contagious so what what lights us up can actually like lift up everyone else around it. It is one of the most useless feelings I can imagine and that's why I think it's so utterly precious.

[01:07:06]>> Oh, that's so beautifully said. And the notion of joy being contagious, I could not agree with that more. In some ways it feels like the when we make time for joy when we are present for joy that's good for us but it's almost also a service to the people around us uh who often feel some of that joy touching them or at least don't feel like our negativity pounding them into the sand >> by our general despair.

[01:07:36]>> That's right. K, I'm just curious there there's a um a line in your book which I I highlighted and then I underscored and then I circled it which was um you write too many people die with this song still in them and that line just gave me chills and can you say more about what inspired that line? That is such a powerful powerful line. That's so funny that you just said that because that's the only thing I like I had like secretly in my heart that I wanted to think about. So that I'm so glad you said that cuz it was um it was the best advice I got from my when I was really sick >> because I and I didn't know how many months I was going to live and so I didn't know >> I didn't know how long I would have to sing this song and I I I knew it wouldn't necessarily be able to wrap up be wrapped up in in any particular outcome like okay well then I can you know for me like finish a book or see the pyramids or >> you know finally I relearn French just which I have forgotten like four times.

[01:08:43]Oh, I just But it was my friend TJ, his uncle had this um it was one Christmas Eve and they lived in like Kansas and there was a box waiting for them on their doorstep and they open it up and it was their Christmas Eve meal and it was lobsters and they put them out on the, you know, they take them out of this like lightly frozen box and they're and they just had their little skittering sound across the counter and he said, "You know, growing up in Kansas, I'd never seen lobsters before.

[01:09:12]I felt like I was on the moon. It was like his uncle just did something so stupid just to delight them. And then he and then he asked his uncle like what his great philosophy was. And he just said like, "Man, too many people die with the song still in them."

[01:09:30]>> And so the more I thought about joy, the more I was like, your life is a song. So then you have to sing it. And like there are going to be major notes and there are going to be minor notes and some things can only be sung in a minor key.

[01:09:42]But like you have got to sing it because no one else can do it for you. And it will come out so strange and so beautiful. But like it is in you to do and it will be louder than despair and louder than every other thing that tells you like don't even try. And I I just so yeah, I think you should take singing lessons because I kind of think we all should.

[01:10:07]>> Well, this is funny because I know right before we started this conversation, I told you I was thinking about taking voice lessons, but but in the metaphorical sense, I I love this idea of singing your song and finding your song. And you know, I was just approximately a year ago that I finished my my my term as surgeon general and I, you know, began life again as a civilian. And you know, Some parts of that journey have been challenging, right? Trying particularly trying to figure out what am I supposed to be doing? What's going to be meaningful to do? What I feel called to do, but what should I do? Like all of these >> codes, wood, shoulds, like are bustling about. But when I read that line, it just made me wonder.

[01:10:47]>> Am I singing my song?

[01:10:49]>> Am I living the life that at the end of my days I'm going to feel like, yes, that was that was me. That was not me living somebody else's life, living some other version what success or fulfillment was supposed to be. That was me singing my own song. Uh living life like in a way that I that I was meant to. Um so I just so appreciate you you you lifting that up and inspiring me to think about that.

[01:11:14]>> You know, every time you like do work, you get attached to an outcome. I like to think of it like a lamp. You just want the lamp to provide light and it accidentally provides heat. You don't like that. And I'm feeling that right now with like I've got all kinds of stuff to do and I'm and I'm going to get stuck into feeling anxious and feeling like I might fail and blah blah blah blah blah. But I decided that in all of this my metric for whether I'm singing my song is going to be so I've been taking improv classes. My appetite like lights me up and makes it's just like practicing telling dumb stories with your friends which is so fun. I've just decided that if I improv is me being super present >> and I can enjoy the magic of the person in front of me. If I can learn how to practice doing that in more and more performative settings where I could either like forget the story and the story is is just that it's so good to be able to try.

[01:12:14]>> Yeah.

[01:12:14]>> Then then I'm going to feel like I became more than I was. And that to me is like I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm I'll know that in this stretch I am singing my song because I I tried I could feel the lift of trying for more and still feeling deeply connected to like the magic of it all.

[01:12:35]>> Oh gosh, that is beautiful.

[01:12:41]You've given me so much to think about, Kate. Okay. Always love our conversations cuz they make me laugh, they make me think, they make me reflect. But I end up feeling like I leave um like a better person, more joyful. And um and I just thank you so much for that. You know, I know our time is coming to a close for this conversation.

[01:13:02]Hopefully won't be our last, but before we close, I wanted to share one last quote from your book, which also just stayed with me. It was the way your book ends actually. And you say the following. We can hide if we want to, but most likely tomorrow we will all need to take a chance. That we might be delighted. That we might be grateful.

[01:13:26]That we might be more hopeful than we thought possible. And when we're not, we can sing to joy. Come find me.

[01:13:36]Kate, thank you so much, my friend, for your friendship, your inspiration, for this inspiring and wonderful book that's full of heart >> and uh I just hope that everybody reads it. I hope it inspires people to look at their lives differently and to be able to find joy in the way that you've uh encouraged us and inspired us to do. So, thanks my friend.

[01:13:59]>> Be you are my most soulful friend and I adore you. Come visit me soon.

[01:14:04]>> Oh, thank you. I would love that.

[01:14:10]Thanks for joining this conversation with Kate Bowler. Each episode is an invitation to anyone out there who is seeking ways to stay human in our complicated world. One thing Kate talked about is how each life is a song.

[01:14:24]Sometimes it's in a major key when everything feels upbeat. Sometimes in a minor key when things feel uncertain or heavy. Here's a question I want to leave you with, and I'd love for you to share your answer with me. Where do you look for joy when you're going through a difficult time? It could be a person you look to, a hobby, a book or a poem, a song, or something else that brings a smile to your face and some ease to your heart. If you don't have something that brings you joy during tough times, that's okay, too. Maybe you want to share something that you're caring right now that's making it hard to imagine feeling joy.

[01:15:03]This is a space for everyone to join regardless of where you're at. Staying human is a journey and we're all on it together. Please write us at hello@stayinghum.

[01:15:15]us. That's hellostayinghum.

[01:15:18]us or leave us a message at 183374hum.

[01:15:24]That's 18337448626.

[01:15:29]You can also join the conversation on our Substack. We'll share back what we learned from this community.

[01:15:37]I'm grateful for the humans who make staying human possible. The producers are Leah Marino, Rebecca Steinberg, Ken Tansel Sith, and Matthew Herskowitz.

[01:15:47]Sound designed by Kyle Murdoch. Stacy Kish is our research and editorial producer. Our series editor is Annie Abulus. Our executive producer is Anne Kim. Original music by Rishihuray. Art direction by Helen Chen. Staying human with Dr. Vive Morty is a production of the Together Project and is made with support from the Knight Foundation and the Arthur Mlank Family Foundation.

[01:16:11]I'm your host Dr. Vive Morty.