To acknowledge and cross a new threshold is always a challenge. It demands courage and also a sense of trust in whatever is emerging.

This becomes essential when a threshold opens suddenly in front of you, one for which you had no preparation.

This could be illness, suffering, or loss. Because we are so

engaged with the world, we usually forget how fragile life can be and how vulnerable we always are.

It takes only a couple of seconds for a life to change irreversibly.

Suddenly you stand on completely strange ground and a new course of life has to be embraced.

Especially at such times, we desperately need blessing and protection.

You look back at the life you have lived up to a few hours before, and it suddenly

seems so far away. Think for a moment how across the world someone's life has just changed,

irrevocably, permanently, and not necessarily for the better. And everything that was once so steady, so reliable, must now find a new way of unfolding.

That's the philosopher and priest John O'Donohue.

Hi, this is against everyone with Connor Abeeb, and this is the fourth episode in my series of episodes on How to Live in 2025.

The territory we find ourselves in this year is destabilizing and can be frightening.

It's a landscape which cannot be navigated using the cultural, political, and economic tools and structures we're

used to. On these episodes, on how to live, I'm exploring what tools can work for us as individuals

and at the same time offer to the rest of the world. At the end of each of these episodes,

I'll offer an exercise, a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or

practical exercise that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the show's guests talk about.

That way, you won't only be participating by listening, but you can actually bring some of the

vitality of the conversation forward. So listen all the way through the music at the end of the episode

for the exercise. This episode's theme is Die. And my guest is Caitlin Doty. Katelyn is the author

of three bestselling books on death, smoke gets in your eyes and other lessons from the

...