Listening transcript · Episode 64

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B1–B2Everyday EnglishAbout 17 min + dynamic ads5 PDF versions available

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Imagine you are sitting in a quiet professional consultation room.

You've been feeling heavy for months.

You can't sleep.

You've lost your appetite for life and every morning feels like a mountain you have to climb.

You tell the doctor about your sadness, your lack of energy, and your fear that life has become a gray, repetitive cycle.

You are waiting for a medical diagnosis, perhaps a name for your pain, and definitely a prescription.

But the doctor leans forward,

looks you directly in the eyes, and says something that makes your heart stop for a second.

He says, I have the cure.

What you really need is a lover.

That is an incredible way to start a conversation.

I can almost feel the shock in the room.

If a professional said that to me, I think my first instinct would be to look for the exit.

It sounds so provocative, so unexpected, and honestly a bit scandalous for a

medical environment.

It really is.

And that's exactly the reaction Jorge Bucay, the famous therapist, gets when he gives this advice.

Today, we are going to dive deep into this idea.

This isn't just a catchy phrase.

It is a profound philosophy about how we choose to spend our limited time on this planet.

We are going to explore why so many of us are just enduring instead of living, and we are going to do it using the best

tool we have, English.

This is a journey for your mind and your language skills.

I'm so ready for this Martin, because when we hear the word lover, our brains immediately go to romance, late night phone calls, and secret meetings.

But as we'll see, Bucay is talking about something much more vital.

He's talking about the fire that keeps a human being from turning into a ghost while they are still alive.

So, let's set the scene.

Who are

these people coming to see him?

Bucay describes a very specific type of patient.

These are people who aren't necessarily ill in the traditional sense, but they are suffering.

They have insomnia.

They can't close their eyes at night because their minds are racing.

They have a total lack of willpower.

They feel a deep, heavy pessimism where every door looks closed.

Some of them are dealing with various physical pains that no x-ray can explain.

But the common thread,

Julia, is the monotony.

Their lives are a straight line with no peaks and no valleys.

They work just to subsist.

They work to pay for the roof over their heads and the food on the table.

But they don't know what to do with their freedom.

That word subsist is so powerful.

It feels like you are just keeping your head above water, but you aren't actually swimming anywhere.

It's the definition of survival, and I think many people

listening can relate to that feeling of being a passenger in their own life.

You wake up, you go to work, you come home, you watch TV, and you repeat.

It's safe, but it's empty.

Exactly, and because they feel empty, they go to doctors.

Many of these people have already visited several clinics before they reached Buckeye, and in those clinics they received the standard condolence of a diagnosis.

The doctors told them, you have depression, and then they

were given the inevitable prescription for the antidepressant of the month.

Now, don't get me wrong, medicine has its place, but Buckeye noticed that for many of these people, the pill was just covering up a deeper hunger.

So after listening to them very carefully, he tells them, you don't need a chemical.

You need a lover.

I love how he uses that word to disrupt their thinking.

He says the expression in their eyes is priceless.

Some think he's

being scientific.

Some get angry and leave, but for those who stay, he explains the secret.

He defines a lover as what passionates us.

It is the thing that occupies our thoughts before we drift off to sleep.

It is the obsession that makes us forget to look at the clock.

It is the reason we feel distracted when we are doing boring tasks, because our heart is somewhere else.

That is the shift.

A lover is anything that puts

you in love with life.

It's that connection that makes you feel like a protagonist rather than a background extra.

And the beauty of this definition, Julia, is that it is incredibly inclusive.

A lover doesn't have to be a person.

In fact, it's often safer and more sustainable if it's an interest or a vocation.

Bukai lists so many examples.

Literature, music, cinema, photography, or even politics.

It could be a sport that makes you push your limits or

a job that you actually feel called to do.

It's about finding that thing that makes you feel alive.

I was thinking about our listeners.

For many of them, this podcast and the English language itself is a type of lover.

Think about it.

It's something they think about before bed.

It's a challenge that keeps them engaged.

It's a way to transcend their current reality and connect with the whole world.

When you are passionate about learning, you aren't

just memorizing words.

You are courting a new way of being.

I love that metaphor.

Courting a language.

It fits perfectly.

And Bukai goes even further.

He says this passion can be found in the need for spiritual growth, in deep friendships, in the joy of a good meal, or even in the obsessive pleasure of a simple hobby.

It is anything that stops you from the sad destiny of enduring.

And this is where the conversation gets a bit

tough because we have to define what enduring really means.

Julia, how would you describe the difference between living and just enduring?

To me, enduring sounds like waiting for the end.

Bukai says that to endure is to be afraid to live.

It's a life defined by no.

No, I won't go out because it might rain.

No, I won't try that because I might fail.

It's when you spend your time spying on how other people live through a

screen instead of stepping outside.

It's being obsessed with your blood pressure, taking multi-colored pills for every tiny discomfort, and observing every new wrinkle on your face with disappointment.

It is a life lived in a defensive crouch, trying to protect yourself from the world instead of embracing it.

That's a vivid image.

Living in a defensive crouch.

When we are in that state, we are constantly postponing.

We say, I'll be happy when I have more money, or I'll

start that project when the kids are older, or I'll travel when the world is more stable.

We use this fragile, uncertain reasoning to justify why we aren't enjoying today.

But the truth is there is no perfect time.

There is only now.

Bukai is very direct about this.

He says, please do not struggle just to last.

Seek a lover.

Become a lover yourself.

Be the main character of your own story.

It reminds me of that famous quote.

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

Bukai says that death never forgets anyone.

It's the one appointment we will all keep.

So why are we so afraid of living?

The real tragedy isn't dying.

It is reaching the end and realizing you never actually showed up.

You were too busy being careful, too busy taking your temperature, and too busy worrying about the humidity to actually

breathe.

That's exactly why his advice is so urgent.

He's trying to wake people up before it's too late.

He says that to be happy, active, and content, you have to be in a relationship with life.

You have to have that spark.

And I want to talk about how we find that spark, especially when we feel stuck in that intermediate plateau, not just in English, but in our personal growth.

Sometimes we feel like we've learned enough to

survive, but not enough to fly.

We get comfortable in our routine, and we stop looking for the lover.

That's a great point, Martin.

We often talk about the intermediate plateau in language learning, where you can communicate, but you don't feel that rush of excitement anymore.

The same thing happens in life.

We reach a level of fine.

My job is fine.

My house is fine.

My health is fine.

But fine is just another word for enduring.

break through that plateau, you have to find a new passion.

You have to find a reason to push yourself again.

You have to fall in love with the process, not just the result.

And that process requires us to be brave.

Finding a lover in the sense of a passion is risky.

If you love photography, you might take bad pictures.

If you love a new language, you will definitely make mistakes and sound silly.

If you love a

vocation, you might fail.

Enduring is safe because you never try.

But living is dangerous because it requires you to be vulnerable.

Bukai is telling us that the danger is worth it.

The alternative is a slow, grey fade into nothingness.

I think we should talk about the vocabulary he uses to describe this lover.

He says it's what makes us distracted frente al entorno, distracted from our surroundings.

In English, we often talk about being in the zone or

in a flow state.

It's that magical moment where time disappears because you are so focused on what you are doing.

Whether you are gardening, writing code, or practicing your English pronunciation, that flow state is the sign that you've found your lover.

That's a perfect connection.

And when you are in that state, those symptoms of depression that Bukai mentioned, the lack of willpower, the pessimism, they start to lift.

Not because you took a pill, but because you

gave your brain a reason to produce its own chemicals.

You gave yourself a motivation.

You gave your life a sense of meaning.

It's amazing how much medicine we can find in a simple hobby if we treat it with the respect and passion it deserves.

It's a very empowering message.

It moves the responsibility away from the pharmacy and back to the individual.

It says you have the power to change how you feel by what you love.

But

it also requires a bit of soul-searching.

You have to ask yourself, what actually makes me lose track of time?

What would I do if I wasn't afraid of looking foolish?

For some people, that question is terrifying because they've been enduring for so long that they've forgotten what they enjoy.

If you feel like you've forgotten your passions, don't panic.

Passion isn't something you find under a rock.

It's something you build through curiosity.

You start by trying things.

You start by being a novice again.

And that brings us back to our journey here in the toolbox.

Every time you listen to an episode, every time you try to use a new expression in a conversation, you are practicing the art of being a lover.

You are being active.

You are being a protagonist.

I love that.

And remember, as Bukai says, the goal isn't to live forever.

The goal is to live now.

Don't spend your life

spying on how others live on social media.

Don't spend your life waiting for the perfect conditions.

Whether it's raining, cold, or humid, those are just details.

The only thing that matters is that you are engaged with the world.

You are in love with life.

As we wrap up this deep dive, I want you to think about one thing you can do this week to stop enduring and start living.

Maybe it's a book you've been meaning to

read, a person you've been meaning to call, or a project you've been postponing.

Whatever it is, treat it like a lover.

Give it your attention.

Give it your thoughts before you go to sleep.

And see how that changes the way you feel when you wake up in the morning.

It's been such a pleasure exploring this with you, Martin.

This text by Jorge Bukai is a classic for a reason.

It's a wake-up call for the soul, and

I hope our listeners feel that spark of excitement today.

English is more than just a language.

It's your invitation to join this global conversation about what it means to be truly human.

Well said, Julia.

Remember, learners, don't just last, don't just exist. Find your lover, be a protagonist, and most importantly, stay in love with the journey.

We'll be here to walk with you every step of the way.

Thank you for sharing your time and your energy

with us today.

We'll see you in the next episode.

Goodbye for now.

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