Get Off Your But!
Updated: Jul 15
We’ve all said some version of it before.
“I love you, but you drive me crazy.”
“I’m grateful, but I wish things were different.”
“I’m excited, but I’m terrified.”
Read those again.
Where did the weight of your attention go?
If you’re like most of us, your mind probably settled almost immediately on whatever came after the word but.
I’ve long wondered why that is. It’s only three letters. Yet somehow, this tiny word has a significant influence on the way we experience our lives.
Part of the answer may lie in the remarkable way language works. We tend to think words simply communicate what we’re thinking. But language does much more than that. It helps organize how we experience the world.
Words carry more than dictionary definitions. They also carry the meanings, memories, emotions, and associations we’ve attached to them over a lifetime.
Language doesn’t only express our experience. It directs our attention within it.
Think about it.
The moment someone says the word but, you’re already waiting for what comes next. You’ve learned that but often introduces an exception, a contradiction, or something that qualifies what came before it.
Without realizing it, your attention begins to shift. The first half of the sentence starts to recede. The second half comes into sharper focus.
Part of that shift reflects the magnificent way our minds are designed. The mind is first and foremost protective. Given the choice between noticing what’s safe and scanning for what could go wrong, it naturally leans toward protection. From an evolutionary perspective, that makes perfect sense. Missing a genuine threat has always carried greater consequences than overlooking a moment of comfort.
So gratitude gives way to worry.
Relief becomes overshadowed by uncertainty.
Love gets eclipsed by the part that drives us crazy.
The mind also longs for resolution to make sense of the world and settle the tension of holding two seemingly competing truths. It wants to know which story is the real one. Which feeling deserves our attention. Which truth should carry the most weight.
The difficulty is that, in trying to protect us from tomorrow, the mind sometimes makes it harder for us to fully receive what is true for today.
I see this every day in conversations with people living alongside cancer.
“I’m grateful the treatment is working, but these side effects are awful.”
“This scan is good news, but I still worry about what the next one will tell us.”
“I feel thankful, but I wish things were different.”
None of those statements need correcting. They’re deeply human.
Yet notice what happens within each statement.
The gratitude remains…
but becomes quieter.
The relief remains…
but feels smaller.
The hope remains…
but somehow seems less believable than the fear.
Then I began wondering what would happen if we changed only one word.
“I’m grateful the treatment is working, and these side effects are awful.”
“This scan is good news, and I still worry about what the next one will tell us.”
“I feel thankful, and I wish things were different.”
The circumstances and emotions haven’t changed. Only our relationship to them has.
The word but asks us to choose between two truths. The word and invites us to step back just enough that both truths have room to exist.
Sometimes wisdom is found in three small letters.
As I found myself reflecting on this, my mind wandered to the yin-yang. It’s one of the most recognizable symbols in the world, yet I realized I’d rarely stopped to really look at it.
We often think of it as representing two opposites. Light and dark. Joy and sorrow. Hope and fear.
But that’s only part of what it reveals.
Look more closely.
The light side contains a small circle of darkness and the dark side contains a small circle of light. Each side carries something of the other.
And the line separating them isn’t straight.
It bends.
It flows.
It refuses to divide life into rigid halves.
Instead, it suggests that these seemingly opposite realities exist in relationship with one another, sharing the same space in continual movement. Perhaps that’s why the symbol has endured for centuries.
What if our work isn’t deciding which side is true?
Our work may be learning to find our equilibrium within their continual movement, allowing both to exist without asking either one to disappear.
Holding two truths that seem to conflict asks more of us.
It requires us to live with tension rather than resolve it.
Cancer asks this of us every day.
We can celebrate a good scan…
and still fear the next one.
We can be deeply grateful for treatment…
and wish none of this had ever happened.
We can feel stronger than we did last month…
and grieve the life we once knew.
I’ve come to believe this isn’t simply the work of living alongside cancer. This has always been the work of being human.
To be changed…
and still recognize ourselves.
Life has rarely asked us to decide which truth is real. More often, it asks us to make room for both.
Reflections on the inner psychological experience of living alongside cancer.
Jae L. Ross, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist who works with individuals and families whose lives have been reshaped by cancer, helping them navigate the emotional challenges of diagnosis, treatment, and beyond.
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