“Yes, you have cancer,” my doctor said on speakerphone.
My fingers were frozen, framing the enlarged text of the pathology report on my phone. It was hard to miss: “INVASIVE DUCTAL CARCINOMA” in all caps, for avoidance of doubt. I let go and slumped to the floor, as movers lumbered past me to bring carefully labeled boxes to the living room of my new condo.
I took stock; the news capped an already-overwhelming year. I sold my first home three months ago. Signed my marital separation agreement one month ago. And somewhere in between, my co-founder Angela and I managed to secure financing for our startup after being defrauded by debt lenders recommended by friends—and all before my 40th birthday.
So yeah, of course cancer.
And yet, there was still a part of me that struggled to accept it.
I wanted to rerun the numbers. The diagnosis ran afoul of the probability tables. I was 39. Only one in 217 women will have breast cancer by the age of 40. In the last decade, I had checked for BRCA1 and BRCA2 twice. Negative. Aside from cancer linked to chronic smoking, there was no significant history of breast cancer in my family. Meanwhile, the nutrition company I had co-founded, Yumi, had already thrown me down the path of health optimization. I drew my blood quarterly, regularly titrating my vitamins and minerals against reported deficiencies. I tracked my sleep, incorporated strength training, and scheduled zone 2 or 5 workouts based on my cycle. I had just hooked my body up to electrodes in a lab to accurately calculate my VO2 max: 43, classified as “excellent” according to the tables I googled.
In short, I had never felt better, never more in control than I did that month. All that, of course, was now blotted by an asterisk—one that was located at the 2 o’clock position in my left breast, 7 cm from my nipple and with a maximal distal length of 1 to 4 cm, pending future pathology reports.
In the following months, I tried to executive-function my way out of breast cancer.
I ping-ponged between experts in New York, Texas, and California. I spent late hours scanning clinical studies and researching options and early hours playing calendar Tetris and pleading with pathology labs to expedite shipments. Ironically, in this frenetic spree—in this bid to control every variable and outcome—cancer taught me to let go. You learn there’s plenty you can’t control. You can’t control if a cell is malignant or nonmalignant. You can’t control feeling like a crude Raggedy Ann doll, when you first run your fingers over your lumpectomy stitches. You can’t bypass the lethargic malaise that settles in after your fourth radiation appointment.
Learning to let go is a good muscle to flex.
Beyond being borne out of necessity, it is an act of kindness—maybe the ultimate act of kindness—to oneself.
A couple days after my lumpectomy, and days shy of my 40th birthday, I was lying in bed. I was partially numbed by painkillers and partially frustrated that I was not on the company Slack. There were decisions that needed to be made on packaging. We were in the middle of rolling out another 1,500 retail stores. But I also recognized the absurdity of my guilt in that moment. It made me think about an anecdote from a decade ago, when I was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and writing a profile on Mark Zuckerberg. In 2012, he volunteered as a teacher for the 8th grade class at Belle Haven Community School in Menlo Park, one of the worst-performing in the region. At the start of every class, he stood at the chalkboard and scribbled his big life principles. Number three was: “Focus on the things you can control.” Number four was: “For the things you can control, never give up.”
Maybe I internalized those rules too strictly. Maybe it was missing rule 3.5, or a fat asterisk: “Be discerning in the things you decide to control.”
There is an infinite and growing list of things we can try to control, but the onus is on us to decide what deserves our precious attention. In the realm of health alone, there is a bloated surplus of biohacker influencers peddling new things to measure, supplement, intravenously deliver, or cold plunge. But until we crack the code on mortality—and getting hit by buses—we will continue to be bound by the finite. We can’t optimize our way to more than 1,440 minutes a day—though many entrepreneurs will continue to try. That limitation of time means that everything we choose, every lever we grab, is a choice against something else.
That is the crux of the lesson that cancer taught me in 2024 (and one that feels especially relevant as we draw up detailed resolutions for 2025). Be judicious in what you choose to control and let go of the rest. Last January, my 2024 resolution included reserving time every weekday for journaling (30 minutes), working out (60 minutes), news consumption (60 minutes), et cetera—with a goal of tracking and upholding these time blocks for 70% of the year. I now laugh at January 2024 me. She got so caught up in the controlling and tabulating, she lost a good chunk of the living, of the “why” of it all. Since cancer, I’ve started to consciously ask myself if I’m focused on the right levers or if I’m fixating on things that will have little impact on my long-term goals and happiness, whether professional or personal. Heading into 2025, my only resolution is to keep narrowing this list. It’s early, but this simple mental shift has freed me to be more present, more creative—and yes, definitely more sane.
Last month, I read the final letter of Susan Wojcicki, the former YouTube CEO who succumbed to lung cancer after a two-year battle. She was an investor in our startup, though I never knew her well. Still, her final words felt warm and familiar, like well-worn ski tracks I had passed before: "Life is unpredictable for everyone, with many unknowns, but there is a lot of beauty in everyday life."
Because therein lies the great paradox of cancer—as it presses you against your own mortality, life’s potential for beauty and richness also comes into crystalline focus. Choose wisely.
The second lesson I learned in 2024? Get that early screening.
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