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21 " Before the baby, before the diagnosis, before the pandemic. Before. Before when I was earnest and clever and ignorant, I thought, life is a series of choices. I curated my own life until, one day, I couldn't. I had accepted the burden of limitless choices only to find out I had few to make. "
― Kate Bowler , No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear
22 " But the truth is somewhere inside of me: there is no formula. We live and we are loved and we are gone. Tumors budded and spread across my colon and liver without my consent, and here I am. "
23 " But no matter how carefully we schedule our days, master our emotions, and try to wring our best life now from our better selves, we cannot solve the problem of finitude. We will always want more. We need more. We are carrying the weight of caregiving and addiction, chronic pain and uncertain diagnosis, struggling teenagers and kids with learning disabilities, mental illness and abusive relationships. "
24 " The great triumph of the "best life now" paradigm was that it summarized the promises of an entire American wellness industry: everything is possible if you only believe. You can find this confident message everywhere from megachurches to Burning Man. It's expressed in the advertising around Peloton bikes and deluxe yoga retreats. Good vibes are big business. "
25 " A bucket list disguises a dark question as a challenge: what do you want to do before you die? We all want, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” But do we attain that by listing everything we’ve ever wanted to do? Should we really focus on how many moments we can collect? "
26 " We are grass, murmur the scriptures. Our crowns are just flowers. We are here and then gone in a burst of wind. "
27 " I must accept the world as it is, or break against the truth of it: my life is made of paper walls. And so is everyone else's. "
28 " This will be a hard journey,” he says. “Is there anything you can set down? "
29 " takes great courage to live. Period. There are fears and disappointments and failures every day, and, in the end, the hero dies. It must be cinematic to watch us from above. "
30 " Time really is a circle; I can see that now. We are trapped between a past we can’t return to and a future that is uncertain. And it takes guts to live here, in the hard space between anticipation and realization "
31 " It is a strange fact that sometimes the people who love you most will be among the first to stop worrying about you. An inflexible optimism stands as a barrier between you. You will be fine. Anything to the contrary seems too difficult to communicate. "
32 " In my finite life, the mundane has begun to sparkle. The things I love—the things I should love—become clearer, brighter. "
33 " But tge truth is somewhere inside of me: there is no formula. We live and we are loved and we are gone. Tumors budded and spread across my colon and liver without my consent, and here I am. "
34 " Based on the information we have about people with Stage Four colon cancer, the survival rate is fourteen percent," he said and began to scan the room as if looking for a window to climb out of. "
35 " Do people age into acceptance? Is this personality or maturity or a natural realism? Had he already accomplished what he wanted to do? Did he see his kids get married, reach an anniversary, or hit a milestone? What amounted to enough? "
36 " Yes! Thank you. I need you to know that these books are not suitable to be sold in a hospital. " I point to a pile of Christian bestsellers I've made on the floor, books that I had carefully studied and documented in a comprehensive history of the movement known as the prosperity gospel. "
37 " He's writing about the 'prosperity gospel.' He's saying God will reward you with money and health if you have the right kind of faith. Joel Osteen is America's most famous prosperity preacher. "
38 " Time is not an arrow anymore, and heaven is not tomorrow. It's here, for a second, when I could drown in the beauty of what I have but also what may never be. "
39 " Time really is a circle; I can see that now. We are trapped between a past we can't return to and a future that is uncertain. And it takes guts to live here, in the hard space between anticipation and realization. How quickly we believe that nothing can be new again but then, look. Another Leonard Cohen song is being sung. Hallelujah. "
40 " no one in a hospital sleeps in the conventional sense. There are only intervals of sleep without rest, interrupted by unfamiliar voices. What’s your date of birth? On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate your pain? To this day, if you wake me up from a nap, I will immediately tell you my birthday. "