Hello listeners, and welcome back to The Science of Self, where you Improve your Life from the Inside Out. Today's guest is Jonathan Gluck, author of The New Book Coming Out and Exercise In Uncertainty.

Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. My name is Jonathan Gluck. I was a long time magazine editor worked at magazines like New York Magazine and Vogue. And I've also been a cancer patient for the last 20 plus years and I've written a memoir about my experience as you noted, called an exercise in uncertainty. And that's what we're here to talk about today.

you use the phrasing, you are a, you are a cancer patient. can you expound on that phrase a little bit that you're still a cancer patient?

Yeah, that's one of the main points of the book actually, is that we, there are a group of us who, and it's a growing group, who are surviving longer and longer with cancers that are not curable, but that are treatable. Just to be clear, because it's something that people really aren't used to hearing about or knowing and don't know a ton about. I'm not talking about people who are diagnosed with cancer and are cured and are therefore considered cancer survivors. And I'm not talking about people sadly get a cancer diagnosis and there is no treatment or cure and. Know, they pass on. Unfortunately the group that I'm in is a middle group. Been calling US cancer zombies, not because we're half dead and half alive, but because we're half sick and half well in that we will never be cured of our particular form of cancer. But it is treatable.

For our listeners that are interested in self-improvement, What can our listeners hope to find from your book in those regards?

That's a great question. I really tried to do two things with the book. One is simply tell my story and the second is to offer exactly the kind of lessons, if you want to call it that, life lessons or perspective that you're talking about and that you and your listeners are interested in. So I'll share a couple thoughts about that. One is I did quite a bit of research on the subject of uncertainty and coping with uncertainty and. One of the people I spoke to is a woman named Kate Sweeney, who is a sociology professor in the University of California system, and she has made a specialty of studying this subject. And she has found some tremendously interesting things over the years in her research. One of them simply put is that uncertainty is super hard to deal with whether it's a serious medical diagnosis or. Even smaller instances of uncertainty. It's just not something humans are great at dealing with. So she did, done studies with people waiting for the results of biopsies or waiting for the results of a bar exam, let's And she's found that people hate uncertainty so much that they'd rather get the bad news. Then continue to have to wait. So in one study she talks about people were told they were split into two groups and told they may or may not receive a small electrical shock. And the pe and some, a surprising number of people, I don't recall the exact figure would tell the researchers, just give me the shock. I just want it over with. The waiting is driving me crazy. So I thought that was fascinating. And a real statement about how difficult it is to cope with uncertainty. Now she and other researchers who study this subject, they have a lot of ways to help. one is simply distracting yourself. Even if that's a distraction, like a TV show or reading a book. Another is trying to find activities that get you into, what? Been popularly called the, recently, the flow state or in the zone where for a prolonged period of time, your mind is so thoroughly occupied with what you're doing, that it helps crowd out the thoughts and worries and anxieties that otherwise, creep into all of our heads. Whether, as I say, it's something day-to-day problem or a very serious problem. That can be anything. It can be for some people it's baking or knitting or meditation or yoga. For me it happens to be fly fishing. I like to fish. Anytime you can engage in an activity like that, it can def, definitely help you cope with anxieties or uncertainties.

Do you practice mindfulness? Is it something that's part of your recovery or part of your approach to dealing with the uncertainty?

It is I'm a terrible meditator. I guess I would describe my meditation skills in the same way you just described your fly fishing skills. I wouldn't say I'm very good at it, but I. Enjoy it and do my best. And another thing that's interesting about a serious diagnosis, and I'm hardly alone this way, is changes your perspective in a lot of ways, and I think almost naturally makes you more mindful. If you want to go back to your previous question about, lessons that all this has taught me, or that could be of benefit to anyone, whether they're going through a diagnosis like this or not. There are a number of them. One is, you become very aware as you might imagine, that life is short, and that it's important to take advantage of whatever time you have here. And that's true for all of us, whether we're. Hyper aware of our mortality as I am in my case or not. So for me, that's made me more present at all times and more mindful at all times just simply by going through it. It's also made me aware of how important it is to do something. Now if you're interested in doing it. so you want to travel to Sri Lanka, if you want to take up. Bocce, it doesn't matter what it is. My advice is do it now because none of us knows how long we're gonna have. If you wanna call a friend for that matter or you're thinking about somebody I tend to really be committed to just doing those things now, more or less the minute I think of them or, if I'm busy at that moment, I'll jot down a note to make sure I do it. And that's brought me a lot of pleasure. I hesitate to give cancer credit for good, but. I suppose it's helped me in that way. There've been many lessons that have come from this, as we're as I'm thinking about this now that you asked the question too, another one that I suspect may have come up on your discussions before as well is this idea of, You're stronger than you think you are. And you can survive more than you think you can. For me, it's about being, optimistically realistic. I'm going to coin a new term. And one of the things about a diagnosis like this and living with cancer so long that you learn is optimistic realism. So what I mean by that is. Every time I come out of remission or I get bad news about my scans and I get checked up every three months or six months when that happens, there's a moment, sometimes an hour, sometimes a day, sometimes a week, Or more when I am super upset and feeling really discouraged and not particularly optimistic or hopeful. And I think that's fine. Sometimes you just need to allow yourself to feel that way for a while. None of us are superhuman. Even if we could, erase those feelings immediately, probably wouldn't be that healthy to do And that's something also that I think has been a valuable lesson I've learned over the years is try and look ahead to the best. To the extent you can and when you're ready. A good friend of mine when I was first diagnosed after expressing his sympathies and whatnot, said, I can't wait to have a beer with you on the other side of this. I thought that was a lovely thing to say because it gives you hope for the future. I don't happen to be a religious person, so I don't do a ton of praying per se, although, you know the expression, there are no atheists and a foxhole. I have occasionally turned to religion when things are particularly bad and done some praying of my own. But one of the other interesting things that's happened to me is. I've become very superstitious with respect to cancer and cancer only. My friends and family would laugh at this because I'm usually not at all a superstitious person and I sort of people about being superstitious, but when it comes to my diagnosis and anything to do with it, I've become. Highly superstitious. I have certain rituals I do before and after tests. I'm sure they don't work one way or the other, but they make me feel better. So I do 'em anyway. I remember thinking that there's a death force, and that force was closer to me than it had ever been. And more powerful in my, a more powerful presence in my life than it had ever Been, Most of us. And why not, go through life, not, knowing rationally that, we're gonna die someday, but almost never thinking about it. Unless we're forced to, obviously in this case I had been forced to, rather dramatically. So I remember thinking like, okay, I feel the presence of this force trying to take me down, so to speak. But then my very next thought was, there's obviously also a life force and there's a very powerful human instinct to survive. That's mu far beyond our understanding at this point. Even with all we do know about the mind and the body medically and psychologically. And that force, that life force was, just as powerful as the death force. And they were constantly battling it out. And not to get too Star Wars about it, but the way I came out that day was I needed to believe in the life force. And I would say that's probably the sort of spirituality that, that I find myself, having.

What is the best way for me to validate and to support someone is receiving. News like you've personally and you share it with someone, how can I best support that person?

there are definitely things dos and don't there, so to speak, i've had many of them in my life both when I was first diagnosed and since, somebody I knew said to me when I was first diagnosed, oh, I understand what you're going through. I had a skin cancer scare once, and it turned out it was benign. That was not helpful because it's apples and oranges. And I've realized people are well intentioned and also people get nervous when. They hear about a cancer diagnosis, it can be scary. And, we all, when we're nervous sometimes blurt out things that we didn't intend. So I, I try not to be too harsh or critical of people who, say or do the quote unquote wrong thing, but, I didn't find that particularly helpful. On the other hand whenever somebody simply says to me, it's easy, like so many things of this sort, right? It's. It's, easier than you think. You just get in your own way. And when somebody just simply expresses their sympathy gosh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Or that sucks, I can't imagine what you're going through, but that sounds really hard. All of those are extremely helpful. So just a basic expression of sympathy. And also, an offer to help, even though it may not be needed, it may not even be entirely practical. I've had friends who've live halfway around the world and have said, and if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. What advice do I have or what lessons, what do I suggest people practice in their own lives? I guess for me, one of the things I've realized in thinking about this a great deal over the years is, people talk about the Serenity Prayer. Gimme the strength to change the things I can change and accept the things I can't. That's paraphrasing obviously, but that's the essence of it I've said to people, I, I don't know if that's the secret to human happiness, but it's as close as I've come. And I think there's just a great deal of wisdom in that. If you're facing a difficulty do your best to address it, particularly when it comes to cancer and cancer diagnosis. Get your regular screenings if something doesn't feel right or you have a suspicion that something is. Going on too long, or as I said with my hip, it was just, almost a year. And I had only just done this minor thing to it and thank goodness I finally went back to the doctor and said, this doesn't seem right. Highly advise you to do that. If things don't add up, go see your doctor. Get your regular screenings, early detection is still the best way to prevent cancers from becoming serious or worse fatal. Yeah, do control the things you can control. And then on the other side of that coin accept the things you can't, we talked some about this already, but try and make peace with the things that you can't problems that you can't wrestle to the ground with your own bare hands or with the help of friends, family, loved ones, experts, whatever it is. Because fighting those things or. Trying to wish them away or pretend they're not happening, in my experience anyway, only makes them worse. So that would be my all seven habits boiled into one.