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

(CNN)At the age of 35, Kate Bowler was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Doctors predicted that at best she had two years to live -- essentially handing the Duke Divinity School professor a death sentence. Since then, she's been on the receiving end of a maddening collection of cringey cliches presumably meant to encourage her, but which have only made her already terrifying situation more difficult. Six years later, Bowler is the author of a remarkable and soul-baring new book filled with the wisdom she has gained on this harrowing journey. In "No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)," she reflects on the epidemic of denial that results in so many of us refusing to gracefully come to terms with finitude -- ours and those around us. Bowler, a historian of self-help, is fed up with "toxic positivity," which she defines as "an overemphasis on the idea that our mindsets determine our reality.">>>>>>>reed more