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No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) Kindle Edition

by Kate Bowler (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) asks, how do you move forward with a life you didn’t choose?

“Kate Bowler is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth.”—Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed

It’s hard to give up on the feeling that the life you really want is just out of reach. A beach body by summer. A trip to Disneyland around the corner. A promotion on the horizon. Everyone wants to believe that they are headed toward good, better, best. But what happens when the life you hoped for is put on hold indefinitely?

Kate Bowler believed that life was a series of unlimited choices, until she discovered, at age thirty-five, that her body was wracked with cancer. In No Cure for Being Human, she searches for a way forward as she mines the wisdom (and absurdity) of today’s “best life now” advice industry, which insists on exhausting positivity and on trying to convince us that we can out-eat, out-learn, and out-perform our humanness. We are, she finds, as fragile as the day we were born.

With dry wit and unflinching honesty, Kate Bowler grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with her limitations in a culture that says anything is possible. She finds that we need one another if we’re going to tell the truth: Life is beautiful and terrible, full of hope and despair and everything in between—and there’s no cure for being human.

From the Publisher

How do you move forward with a life you didn’t choose?


	Everything Happens for a Reason	Good Enough	Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day!	The Lives We Actually Have

Customer Reviews	6,127	1,184	253	615
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	“Belongs on the shelf alongside other terrific books about this difficult subject, like Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal.”—Bill Gates	A compassionate, intelligent, and wry series of Christian daily reflections on learning to live with imperfection in a culture of self-help that promotes endless progress.	Witty, honest, and wise spiritual reflections that invite readers to embrace the bad, not just the good.	Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie offer creative, faith-based blessings that center gratitude and hope while acknowledging our real, messy lives.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“I began reading No Cure for Being Human after dinner one evening and didn’t move until I finished the last gorgeous page. As I finally put this masterpiece down, I thought Kate Bowler is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth. Bowler is a prophet and her new offering is another true gift to the world. This book will open minds and warm hearts.”—Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed

“With grace, wisdom, and humor, Kate Bowler encourages us to cut back on self-help Kool-Aid and teaches us what it means to be human.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again

“Bowler offers an alternative to the good vibes/prosperity gospel approach: honesty with room for mystery and humor.”—The New York Times

“Kate Bowler has paid through the nose to become a writer of uncommon spiritual wisdom, coupled with an amazing sense of humor and a heart full of love. She fills me with hope.”—Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author of Dusk, Light, Dawn

“Kate Bowler refuses to jump on the bandwagon of toxic positivity. Instead, she leads us to a truer truth: The work is unfinishable, and so be it.”—Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author, host of the podcast Kelly Corrigan Wonders and PBS’s Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan

“Kate Bowler is the rare author who can explore difficult subjects with both breathtaking honesty and lightheartedness. She brings profound insight and love to the human experience.”—Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project

“In a culture that asks us to constantly strive and improve, Kate Bowler recognizes that our own pain is neither an aberration nor an opportunity but a fact of life. There is nobody on earth who sees our humanity quite like Kate Bowler.”—Nora McInerny, creator and host of the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking

“Those in need of a wake-up call will find it in this breathtaking narrative. . . . Bowler’s strong faith is present throughout, though the writing, refreshingly, never feels overtly religious. . . . Her convictions underscore the importance of living life on one’s own terms.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[Kate Bowler] follows her earlier . . . with wise, wry reflections on living in the face of uncertainty. . . . Like others who have suffered traumatic loss or illness . . . Bowler recognizes that ‘so often the experiences that define us are the ones we didn’t pick.’ A sensitive memoir of survival.”—Kirkus Reviews

“With hilarity and courage, Bowler tells the story of being diagnosed with stage-four cancer at age thirty-five, which forced her to re-examine the way she (and we) live our lives. This is a brilliant examination of what happens when everything you assumed is suddenly in question.”—Lori Gottlieb, bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

About the Author

Kate Bowler is an associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School. She completed her undergraduate degree at Macalester College, received a master’s of religion from Yale Divinity School, and a PhD at Duke University. She is the author of Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, the New York Times bestselling memoir Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, and The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities. On her popular podcast, Everything Happens, she talks with people about what they have learned in difficult times and why it is so difficult to speak frankly about suffering. She has appeared on the TED stage, NPR, and Today, and her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Time. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband, Toban, and son, Zach.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Best Life Now

I was in bed in the surgical wing of Duke University Hospital when the doctor popped his head in the door and smiled apologetically before flicking on the fluorescent lights. It was 4:00 a.m., the end of my second night in the hospital, but 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.

I opened my eyes and saw a boyish face. The doctor wore a white coat too large for his frame and his eyes were bleary either from a day that had only begun or from a night that had gone on too long.

“Six, sixteen, 1980. June 16.”

“Right,” the doctor said, then paused. “So . . . you’re thirty-five.”

I nodded, and my eyes began to water. I brushed the tears away quickly. Not the right moment for that now, thank you.

“If you keep replenishing my fluids, I’ll just keep crying,” I explained. “Maybe keep me in a stage of light dehydration for the next few days.”

The doctor suppressed a laugh and began to riffle through my case history. “The patient has a history of abdominal pain after meals. Significant weight loss. Nausea and vomiting. No ultrasound evidence of gallstones or cholecystitis, but results of hepatobiliary scan led to a surgical consult to remove the patient’s gallbladder . . . then you got a CT scan.”

“No,” I corrected. “I yelled at a surgeon for the first time in my life and said that I was not leaving his office without a scan. Then they ordered a scan.”

This had been the biggest showdown of my life, the doleful surgeon with his arms folded and me loudly demanding some kind of treatment. It had been five months, and I had lost thirty pounds. I was doubled over with the pain. “I can’t bear this much longer,” I had said, again and again as doctors benignly shuffled me along.

The young doctor glanced up at me and then turned back to his notes.

“The scan revealed that the liver has multiple focal lesions; the largest are seen within the caudate and right hepatic lobe in addition to several scattered subcentimeter lesions, some are noted within the periphery of the liver and some are subcapsular. The large left transverse colon mass was what created the functional obstruction for you, hence the pain.” He looked up at me quickly. “And then there are local regional lymph nodes that are worrisome for early peritoneal carcinomatosis.”

The heart monitor beeped softly.

I cleared my throat nervously. “Um, so, this is my first real conversation since the diagnosis. I mean, I know I had surgery, obviously.”

Flustered, I tried to start again. “The day before yesterday, a doctor’s assistant called me on the phone at work to tell me that I had Stage Four cancer. But I don’t know what these terms mean except that it sounds like I am a spaghetti bowl of cancer. People keep saying ‘lesions,’ ” I said. “I haven’t had a chance to google it. What are lesions exactly?”

“Tumors. We’re talking about tumors.”

“Ohhhhh,” I said, embarrassed by another flood of tears. “Right. And are there more than four stages of cancer?”

“No.”

“Okay, so I have the . . . most. The most cancer,” I finished lamely.

The doctor stood there for a minute, raking his hands through his hair, whatever plans he had for this conversation deteriorating. He lowered himself onto the chair beside the bed but remained bolt upright as if to remind us both that he could leave at any time. The room was warm and stale. A silence folded over us, giving me a moment to look at him more carefully now, his mussy hair and anxious expression, wrinkled coat and brand-new sneakers. He is too young for this. God, we are both too young for this.

“I’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind.”

“By all means.”

“I’d like to know what my odds are. Of living. I’d like to know if I will live. No one has mentioned that.” I kept my voice invitational. I will not shoot this messenger. This is a friendly exchange between interested peers.

He paused. “I only know how to answer that by telling you the median survival rate for people who share your diagnosis.”

“Okay.”

“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.

“A fourteen percent chance of survival,” I repeated in a neutral voice. My head felt suddenly heavy as if I were pushing the words up a steep hill. Fourteen percent. Fourteen percent. We lapsed into another silence. The doctor shifted in his seat. He rose to leave, but I reached out, abruptly, to stop him.

“Hey!” I said too loudly. “I mean, hey.”

Startled, he looked down. My hand was closed tightly around his arm like a collar.

“It’s just . . .” I started again. “You’d better be holding my hand if you’re going to say stuff like that.”

He sat back down and carefully took my hand. I closed my eyes and thought of the last time I was here, in this hospital, holding someone’s reluctant hand. It was a maternity nurse. And I could not be reasoned with. “Short inhale! Long exhale!” she had shouted. “Are you laughing or yelling?” A bit of both. But I was waiting for something absolutely wonderful to happen.

I opened my eyes.

“Okay.” I said, letting him go. He stood to leave. “Wait! Wait. Before you go. What does survival mean in this context?”

He paused, his expression softening.

“Two years,” he said.

I don’t know what he saw, but he took my hand again.

“Okay,” I said at last. “Okay then.” Because I was counting.

Two years. 730 days.

This new definition of living is glued together by a series of numbers. I would be thirty-seven years old. I would celebrate my fifteen-year wedding anniversary. Zach would turn three.

I rummage around the things that the nurses had left within reach—a styrofoam cup of apple juice, peanut butter crackers, an untouched bowl of Jell-o cubes—until yes, there. My phone. I pull up the calendar and the calculator for some quick math: two Christmases, two summers, and 104 Thursdays.

I sink back into the bed with a long exhale. That is not enough time to do anything that matters. Only small terrible choices now.

Just then, Toban tiptoes into my hospital room holding a coffee so protectively that I already know the kind of night he has endured. I stuff the phone under my blankets and smile. Seeing me awake, he smiles back, a little nervously. A newly forming habit.

“Did I miss anything?” he asks, coming around to the side of my bed to press his cool palm against my sticky forehead. He frowns.

“No,” I reply quickly. “There’s nothing definite, I mean.”

He settles into the chair and leans back, closing his eyes. I study him for a long moment. My husband has only ever had three facial expressions on his stupidly handsome face: brooding, sleepy, and what I call “trampoline face” which is the self-satisfied look of a grown man about to do a flip on a trampoline and hoping everyone will stop what they’re doing to applaud. But now I can see we’re adding another.

Careworn.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08RHF2RV5
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House (September 28, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 28, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2554 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 208 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #110,175 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #173 in Personal Growth & Christianity
- #319 in Motivational Self-Help (Kindle Store)
- #708 in Memoirs (Kindle Store)

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4.6 2,553 ratings

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Kate Bowler

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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. In her twenties, she became obsessed with writing the first history of the movement called the “prosperity gospel”—which promises that God will reward you with health and wealth if you have the right kind of faith. She researched and traveled across Canada and the United States interviewing megachurch leaders and televangelists and everyday believers about how they make spiritual meaning out of the good and bad in their lives. The result was the book, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, which received widespread media attention and a lot of puns about being #blessed.

At age 35, she was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, causing her to think in different terms about the research and beliefs she had been studying. She penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved), which tells the story of her struggle to understand the personal and intellectual dimensions of the American belief that all tragedies are tests of character.

Her third book, The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities follows the rise of celebrity Christian women in American evangelicalism. Whether they stand alone or beside their husbands, they are leading women who play many parts: faithful wife, spiritual authority, and Hollywood celebrity.

On her popular podcast, Everything Happens, Kate speaks with people like Malcolm Gladwell, Matthew McConaughey, and Anne Lamott about what wisdom and truth they’ve uncovered during difficult circumstances.

Her latest book, No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear), grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with limitations in a culture that promises anything is possible.

Kate’s work has received wide-spread media attention from NPR, The Today Show, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the TED Stage, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her family, continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School, and stockpiles anecdotes about the hidden benefits of being from the middle of Canada.

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Katherine Y

Author offers wisdom learned from living with a fatal diagnosis

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2022

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Kate Bowler has written an inspirational book about navigating a devastating diagnosis. A professor at Duke Divinity School with a husband and baby son, thirty-five-year-old Kate, is told she has Stage Four colon cancer. After weeks of abdominal pain and losing thirty pounds, she hears the chilling words that she has a fourteen percent chance of surviving two years. Kate immediately thinks of what that means for her and her young family, all the milestones she will miss. She must confront early mortality.
This is not a book that offers easy platitudes or messages about overcoming adversity with a positive attitude. The book deals in a frank, unflinching way about meeting a grim reality with honesty, courage, and humor. It isn’t preachy. Nowhere does Kate suggest that if only you think the right thoughts and know the right Bible verses, you can eliminate suffering. Pain in this life is a given, no matter what the prosperity doctrine preaches.
What it means to live to the fullest when your days are numbered is the theme of this book. Kate lists the platitudes often quoted to those undergoing difficult trials and gives her own version of what she has learned. My favorite is her response to “let go and let God.” Her’s is “God loves you, but He won’t do your taxes.” Readers of books about overcoming adversities will be pulled into her story and benefit from her wisdom and humor.

20 people found this helpful

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Jackie

Humanity depends on one another for healing in ways we never even see coming.

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2021

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The years which have been Kate's journey into motherhood have simultaneously threatened to be her last years on earth. Within juggling life's hardest transitions Kate often calls on the people who have been in her life up until now to continue to provide security, clarity, and soft places to land when the yearning for something real can actually be understood. Her 'normal day in day out' was taken hostage from her options and choices so abruptly that it left her world spinning what seemed wildly out of control. Being a human is a wonderful thing in which our intellectual level can level the playing field when even the worst events that can happen to us seem relentless in taking us down. Kate is a fighter and survivor in ways she shouldn't have even been once she finds it is more successful being her own advocate and driver in the future of her medical path. As her body takes a turn for the better it seems she is superhuman in her strength to be well enough to enjoy another day in her life as a mom and human. Kate sees differently now in ways usually reserved for people who are several decades beyond her. Each interaction with another human becomes another dose of medicine along the way. There is always room in our cup, whether there is a hole in the bottom of it and we are seemingly losing or we feel like we couldn't possibly hold another drop and then something leaves to make room for the next. We are all human afterall. Just as God made us and everybit of what he intended. We have more choices and options then we ever thought possible and often times a person to our right or left can actually say something that changes EVERYTHING.

4 people found this helpful

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White Roses

thought provoking book

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2022

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this book is thought provoking and would be a great one to discuss in a book club.
as a medical professional I thought her experiences gave insight into how we can be supportive but also cause frustration. Her conclusion at the end was well thought out and in many ways gave the reader a breath of fresh air. Well written and helpful on so many levels.

4 people found this helpful

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TJ

Want more compassion for those dealing with cancer?

Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2021

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I recommend this book to those who want to more compassion and understanding for those who are dealing with cancer or otherwise engaged with the medical system. As a person who has been treated for cancer for 20+ years, and a person who cared for a spouse for a year, after a sudden diagnosis until his death from cancer, and who very recently lost a sister and a godmother to cancer, I have LOTS of feelings about this book. I also had LOTS and LOTS of tears and I could not read it at night because I would then lay awake thinking about Kate’s words. But, if you have ever wondered what it is like for people with cancer, or people who have lots of medical interventions, and wanted insight to better understand their experience, then this is the book for you. This book resonated so strongly with me, with my experience in the medical system, both a patient and caregiver, and with my experience in a community of faith, sometimes transporting me back to memories I would prefer not to relive. I first read Everything Happens while my husband was dying from cancer, and it was a beacon through that tough time. I will re-read No Cure when I am feeling a bit less tender, to better digest it and take in the truths and lessons it contains to help me through this time.

10 people found this helpful

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Jenny Lynn

A Great Reminder of our Humanity

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2022

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Kate's writing style is very inviting. My therapist reccomended this book for me. I am having a very hard time accepting where I am at, along with several new diagnosis'.

This book (and The Holy Spirit) helped me to remember to tending to my needs first, then others. To savor every moment. And that we are all human. Through vulnerability and authenticity (in a safe space) we can share our journeys others and not feel so lonely.

I really enjoyed how Kate kept it real and left 'church-speak' out of it. I find myself in a better place of acceptance now that I've read "No Cure for Being Human". I definitely needed to hear the other truths too. This book helped me anchor into self-grace and allow myself the same courtesy I offer others.

Thank you Kate for leading, sharing and loving God and others so bodly. Claiming continued healing and cancer-free in Jesus name! 🙏🏼🛐📿

2 people found this helpful

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Rubifoam

Heavy and beautiful.

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2023

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Oh, for eyes, a mind, and a heart to see such beauty and tragedy in combination. Deeply thoughtful and respectfully irreverent, I loved every word of this book. It hit me where I am currently living and seeking truth and meaning. There is indeed 'no cure for being human'.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Jerry Hogeveen

comforting and reassuring

Reviewed in Canada on January 29, 2024

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Loved the validation, hopeful reality, honest descriptions of the struggles associated with a cancer journey I am just beginning
Amazing

sophie ruggles

Beautifully written

Reviewed in Spain on November 1, 2021

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This memoir does what all memoirs are supposed to do. It moves emotion and provokes thought. But what I enjoyed most about this read was the elegant writing and the intelligence of the story teller.

A wake up call

Reviewed in Australia on February 8, 2022

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Religion, positivity, being present, materialism, vanity careers and excessive striving all fail at some stage. These truths are hard to hear but it’s best to have the wake up call now - before it is forced upon you.
The section on the pandemic reinforces the author’s hybrid Gnostic/Stoic take on the nature of an absurd reality.

Carly

Author is brilliant

Reviewed in Canada on October 25, 2021

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Kate tells it how it really is. She’s brilliant, witty, genuine and honest. She will help many people with this book. You must read her other books as well. 5 stars

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