Canadian academic and author Kate Bowler spoke on Feb. 7 in the Oxford Student Center for the Chaplain’s Lecture Series.
During the talk, she discusses the challenges of false positivity and other topics featured in her new novel “The Lives We Actually Have,” which was released on Valentine’s Day this year.
This was the first time the series returned in-person to Oxford College since the onset of COVID-19, Oxford College Chaplain Lyn Pace noted. The Chaplain’s Lecture Series is an annual event sponsored by the Pierce Program in Religion, and the Oxford’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (ORSL) decides the speaker each year.
“I've been here for 14 years, and it's been happening ever since I've been here,” Pace said, though he wasn’t sure the exact year the series began.
The overarching theme of the Chaplain’s Lecture Series has always been “religion, faith, spirituality and meaning making,” Pace added. Past topics include “interfaith and interreligious understanding” presented by Interfaith America and “the building of civil rights and racial justice in Atlanta” presented by Taos Wynn (06Ox, 09C), Pace said.
This year, the ORSL invited Bowler, who refers to herself as “New York Times Bestselling Author, Duke Professor and Incurable Optimist,” to deliver the lecture titled “Life After Perfect.” Bowler was diagnosed with stage four cancer at 35 years old, but she survived and continued to tell her story to the world through her podcasts, speeches and books.
Pace cited Bowler’s willingness to be authentic in front of the student body as why ORSL chose to invite herthe reason why ORSL invited her.
“Stage four cancer, not a lot of people survive that,” Pace said. “But she did that in her 30s, so it gave her a new perspective, which allowed her to be more honest about life, about things that aren't and don't have to be always perfect.”
Interim Dean of Oxford College Kenneth Carter (87Ox, 89C), who helped facilitate the event and first met Bowler in 2020 when she interviewed him for her podcast “Everything Happens,” shared similar sentiments with Pace.
“Kate’s upbeat, honest and inspiring message will challenge each of us to examine our own answers to such fundamental questions as what it means to be successful and how to navigate the challenges and unpredictability that come with being human,” Carter wrote in an email to the Wheel.
After Carter gave a brief rundown of the lecture’s content, Bowler took the stage in front of a room filled with faculty and students. She began her speech by breaking down the concept of “perfectibility.”
“It is the feeling in the pit of our stomachs that we could be better — no, we should be better,” Bowler said. “This feeling, the collective weight of it, is what I love to call the perfectibility paradigm. It's that try-harder-and-do-better-other-people-are-already-at-the-finish-line feeling.”
Bowler then shared how her experience of being diagnosed with stage four cancer has pushed her to challenge this mindset.
“What we've done is we've made a reflexive positive thinking into a false form of resilience.” Bowler said. “This brand of American optimism becomes poison when it makes us lie, when it forces us to pretend that the best is yet to come. It places pressure on ourselves to maintain positivity, in the midst of pain and grief and suffering.”
Bowler encouraged the audience to challenge the blind positivity mindset along with her, to accept the imperfectability of life as she has done.
“Could we put down a little bit of the exhausting positivity and our metaphysical mind power that prevents us from being more honest, from perhaps reaching for the help that we need and frankly deserve?” Bowler asked. “We will try for more, we will reach for what is possible.”
After the lecture, Bowler and Pace co-hosted a Q&A session answering questions about her lecture and a book signing for her novels.
Virginia Cano (23Ox) said thought the lecture taught her a powerful message.
“Ms. Bowler, in one sentence, let the whole crowd know that it is okay, and even powerful, to say I am not living my best life now,” Cano said.
Maylee O’Brien (23Ox) agreed with Cano’s sentiment.
“[Bowler] spoke with such empathy and honesty and she inspired everyone to give themselves and others a little more grace,” O’Brien said.
Bowler said she was happy with the audience’s reaction.
“A lot of people in the audience have professions that are very similar [to mine], like nurses or social workers or people who care for others.” Bowler said. “It's lovely to talk about caring for others in an audience that already knows how to do that.”
