Life is stressful and life is wonderful

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that life is stressful and life is wonderful.
There is no contradiction here. Rather than impose a single

(00:25):
narrative on life, we can acknowledge both truths and see
both kinds of moments for what they are. Today's tip,
like several others, this week, comes from my book I
Know How She Does It, which is ten years old
this month. For this book, I studied one thousand and
one days in the lives of women who had big

(00:47):
jobs and who also had kids at home to see
what life really looked like. I've found that in the
one hundred and sixty eight hours of a week, there
is plenty of time to work, a family, time, sleep, exercise, read,
see friends, and so forth. Lots of people do, in

(01:09):
fact have it all. Of course, there were stressful moments too.
Any one hundred and sixty eight hours has some highs
and lows. But I think it is important to zoom
out and see both the good moments and the bad
moments together without deciding that the bad needs to define everything.
To illustrate this in the book, I told the story

(01:32):
of a summer day trip to the Jersey Shore. If
I wanted to point to evidence that this trip was
a disaster, I could. We got stuck in traffic on
the way there, which turned a ninety minute trip into
a four hour one. This is really fun when you
are pregnant, as I was at the time, and not
near any bathrooms. On the way home. My two year

(01:54):
old daughter lost her pacifier, so she screamed for much
of the trip, and my four year old son got sick,
so he was vomiting most of the way home. Good times.
But those were not the only things that happened on
this day trip to the beach. I had a really
good lunch, The beach was beautiful. Even on the trip home.

(02:16):
There were a few blessed moments when no one was
screaming or throwing up. I didn't have to tell the
story of this beach trip as a disaster because it
wasn't all a disaster. It had both its ups and
its downs. Life is stressful and life is wonderful. What

(02:38):
would change if you consciously used that language? What if
you really leaned into that word? And I worked late
on Monday, and I had a really lovely family dinner
on Tuesday. The baby woke up three times during the
night on Thursday, and I had an amazing lunch with colleagues.

(02:59):
The flight to Hawaii, you felt endless with small kids,
and the Hawaii landscape is just stunning. I am so
glad I saw it. All these things can be simultaneously true,
so why fret if one is more true than the other.
Happiness comes from seeing the good moments, even if there

(03:21):
are rough ones happening as well. Either or stories, on
the other hand, just tend to limit our lives in
the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening

(03:47):
to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

(04:10):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Life is stressful and life is wonderful