For a few days in early December, I was waiting for a phone call from the vet to tell me if my dog was going to die. I’d taken Huck in for dental pain, but blood work revealed he was entering kidney failure.
The timing of it all felt particularly pointed; that very morning, after months of chaos, I had written in my journal, I think at last we might finally be entering a season of peace.
But the universe had decided, instead, to threaten my dog.
(Didn’t I promise to take us out of the darkness this week? I will, I swear.)
As we went through more diagnostic testing, I worked hard to keep myself from spiraling into anxiety: Maybe this test was a weird outlier. Maybe he has Addison’s Disease, or something else treatable.
It was classic optimism, the easiest story to tell, and sometimes, if we’re lucky optimism works. But Huck didn’t have Addison’s Disease, or anything that could be treated. The followup bloodwork confirmed his kidneys were faltering. There weren’t any easy answers, not for Huck, not for me.
Huck is one more manifestation of a story that I need to learn, again and again. The world we are living in is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. It always has been. It always will be, for Huck, for me, for you too. And if you’re only okay when everything around you is okay, well, you will spend a lot of life being not particularly okay.
Success starts with the story you tell, but there is no story that will turn on Huck’s kidneys. I have to construct a narrative that will work no matter what happens to Huck, or the family member in my heart this month, or our Democracy that feels so fragile. And isn’t that the mission we all face, with storytelling? To tell a story that sustains us, not when the good stuff happens, but no matter what. Because no matter what is, most of the time, the conditions under which we live.
Act Three: Find Why
Winifred Gallagher is a science reporter who has done lots of research on the power of attention: “The skillful management of attention is the sine quo non of the good life and the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience.” Her work, and that of scores of scientists, have shown that focus is one of the most critical attributes in success.
Or as I like to put it, see the river, not the rocks.
This act of focus, of deciding where to fix my gaze, where to point my boat, has become a regular practice for me, even more so when I am stressed. Sometimes, when I sit down to work in the morning, or when I am about to tackle a hard task, I pause, and I take a deep breath, and I visualize myself launching my boat into the current. I imagine myself on a dock, settling into my kayak, ready to tackle the rapids ahead. (In this vision, I have a combat roll.) I grasp the paddle in my hands. I feel the hard shell of the boat, the fresh air. I feel the water moving beneath me.
I close my eyes. A boat in harbor is always safe, but that’s not what boats are for. I imagine myself shoving into the current, shoving into the day, shoving into the unknown that is every river we will ever run.
It’s important to Fear Not when you push off into the river, but you don’t go down the river because you’re not afraid.
And you’ve got to be able to Fight Back because your boat will flip, and the storms will come, and you will go under. But life is about more than surviving our crashes.
It’s one thing to say “don’t fear death.” But it’s something completely different to say, “Embrace life.”
When Ms. Gallagher was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, and was looking down a solid year of invasive, painful treatment, she decided to test her own science about focus. She decided to make every day not about the chemotherapy, or the hours she would spend at an infusion clinic. She would focus instead, perhaps, on the martini she would have when she was done, or on whatever good thing she could identify. At the end of the year, she reported back that it was the best year of her life.
It was an outstanding example of how important it is to know where to put your focus. Put your gaze in the right place, and you will thrive no matter what. As Henry David Thoreau noted, It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
See the river, but what is the river?
The river is wherever you want to go. The river is why.
The River You See
Literally since ancient times, humans have been aware of the incredible power of purpose. Aristotle called it “eudaimonia,” the joy of being connected to your deep purpose; he described that as the highest aspiration of human life.
“The purpose of life is a life with purpose.” - Aristotle
The nineteenth-century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote that “the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.” Both of those philosophers tap into a deep truth: when we feel connected to a deeper purpose, we do better. No matter what.
Some years back, I participated in the annual conference for the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to a radically improved quality of life for people living with advanced illness. At the opening session, an older Black woman, short and round with a smile I could see from the back of the auditorium, took the stage.
Barbara was living with Stage IV incurable cancer. “I was supposed to be dead years ago,” she announced. But she was thriving, in every sense of the word, and she wanted to tell us why.
“I have advanced cancer,” she said, like a gospel preacher, “But I have a sense of purpose. And it is well with my soul.”
Barbara’s message for the thought leaders and practitioners who were setting an agenda for the years to come: Do not focus on how to fight disease. Focus on how to protect life. How to protect purpose. She was speaking deep truth, grounded in science.
Viktor Stretcher found that people reporting a strong purpose in life, on average, live longer lives than those with a weak purpose. Over a multi-year period, seniors with a low purpose in life were 2.4 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those with a high purpose in life. Interestingly, in this study, feelings of happiness or sadness did not matter. People were happy and died; or sad and lived. Happiness and sadness are temporary states. But feeling purposeful, feeling connected, feeling attached to life: that is what lasts. That is what sustains us.
That is the whole damn point of the story.
Find Why.
“It is well with my soul,” Barbara said, and the room rose to its feet cheering, because cancer is the rocks, but life? Life is the river. And the river is why.
When the stakes are as high as they have ever been, when the plot twist brings you to your knees, the best way forward is simply this. Ask yourself: what do you love? What is worth fighting for? What do you believe in? Point your boat in that direction. And go from there.
The good news is that you don’t have to go far at all.
A Very Little Why
Last week, I noted that hope begins small as a tap on the walls of your prison cell. Likewise, purpose can be as simple as Winifred’s martini glass at the end of a long scary day.
Almost any activity at all, done with intention, has been shown to increase longevity and well being among seniors or people living under adverse conditions. This includes: singing in a choir, taking a class, going to a religious community or a yoga studio, making a friend. One piece of research showed that simply caring for a plant reduced dementia significantly in seniors.
Purpose doesn’t mean a capital-C Calling. Purpose is as small as anything that you care enough about to truly invest in, and we’ll talk more about that in the weeks to come, but for now, let’s get back to me and Huck.
As my own narrator, as a human being, I am always tempted to get sucked into my fears for an unknown future. I have to keep reminding myself: I’m not on the river because I don’t want to crash into rocks. I’m on the river because there is somewhere that I want to go. I’m on the river because God, have you noticed how beautiful this world can be?
Fear Not.
Fight Back.
But above all else: Find Why.
When I am afraid, I try to remember that the opposite of fear is not fear not. The purpose of life is a life with purpose, and I point my gaze downstream. I find something to paddle towards.
Sometimes, it’s small enough to see me through the next hour. I’ll do some yoga, or try to learn a piano piece, or meet a good friend on Friday morning. But eventually, with practice, even without noticing it, your why can start to grow. We’ll get to that also. When I was at my most scared about Huck, I found a purpose big enough to see me through a hard year.
Which brings us to this very moment. Huck is curled up happily here beside me. His mid-December kidney results weren’t great, but we’ve tested him twice more since then, and they’ve improved a bit. He’s not normal, though. He drinks absurd amounts of water and if you stop by our house at 3 am, we’ll be in the front yard letting him pee. I probably think he’s not likely to have a super long life.
But at the moment, right here, right now, I’m writing these pages, and he’s doing just fine. So am I.
And you’re partly why.
This is one chapter in a year-long saga of love, grief, and the stories we tell to survive it all. To find out how it began, go here. Or subscribe for free to get a new chapter every Tuesday.
Gorgeous. I love the thought “Do not focus on how to fight disease. Focus on how to protect life.” Goals are so often set around what we want less of instead of what we want more of, but focusing on more leads to greater fulfillment and joy. Thank you!
That was beautiful and such great insight. I took some notes. Life just gets so busy sometimes and it is easy to forget what is truly important. I so agree that purpose is such a meaningful thing. I really enjoyed this today and look forward to it every week. I’m so glad Huck is still with you. He’s a sweet boy! ❤️