MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Every week, a well-known guest draws a card from the Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Duke Divinity School professor Kate Bowler was 35 years old when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. She wrote a best-selling memoir about that experience, titled "Everything Happens For A Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved." She looks at the way people try to put a positive spin on bad things, even when there is not a silver lining to be found. Kate Bowler now hosts a podcast called "Everything Happens." She talked to Wild Card host Rachel Martin.
RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: What do you wish you could let go of?
KATE BOWLER: I think it's something I write about all the time, 'cause I'm always really struggling with it, is that cultural insistence that we always have to be getting better. I'd love to give up the idea that in every area of my life I'm supposed to, you know, come the new year, always have this New Year's moment. But I always end up looking at my life like it's some kind of quadrant with, you know, progress and...
MARTIN: Yeah.
BOWLER: ...Mostly dramatic and sudden failures (laughter). And so I just - I am always accidentally measuring, measuring, measuring, measuring, measuring. And I don't think that's - I think we're supposed to get worse at some things because we're not paying any attention to it and we found something better to focus on.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BOWLER: I wish for everyone that they didn't wake up and think about how much they weigh in the morning. I mean...
MARTIN: I know.
BOWLER: ...Just what a waste of time.
MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah.
BOWLER: Waste of a good woman over here. It's just caring.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Yeah. So now I go one step deeper and ask you to share, if you would be willing to, what's a thing that you find yourself measuring yourself with or against that you want to release?
BOWLER: There's a way of measuring a day that I've been trying desperately to stop doing, and I can't seem to do it. And it's - I think it was probably the first time I really started thinking about efficiency and treating my life like a Ford Motor Company. But when I wake up in the day, I know exactly how many hours it takes me to do some of the most important things that I want to do. Like, I know exactly how long writing should take me for a certain number of words. And that was - that served me really well when I had cancer. I mean, I was like, Kate, this is the amount of time I have. This is the amount of energy I have. Like, how do I spend - how do I spend my life? But the metaphor of spending is really corrosive.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BOWLER: So then I find it much more difficult to actually focus on some of the really lovely things that I actually need in my life that are not very measurable. Like, I don't read not-useful things very often because I'm always trying to put in the time it takes to make the thing I want to make. And so the only way I have, I think, a lot of growth in that area is friends. I can spend an - like, I will waste my life with my friends all day long. But when it comes to me, I would love to have more just, like, uncounted, completely wasted, doesn't matter time.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BOWLER: And I'm so judgy - so judgy with myself. I wouldn't - I don't - I have only hopeful feelings that other people will waste their time, but I find it almost impossible for me to waste my time. And I think just - I got worse like this when I got sick.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BOWLER: And now I'm an efficiency monster, and I can't undo it.
KELLY: You can hear more of that conversation with Kate Bowler on the Wild Card podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
