The Real Question

By Not Sorry

Society & Culture

What's The Real Question about?

In this intimate podcast we explore how attention can be a tool for living a more intentional life. This season, Atheist chaplain Vanessa Zoltan guides guests through questions of quitting with empathy and humor. Vanessa has always been a big advocate of quitting – she believes quitting doesn't mean 'giving up,' it means you've tried something and realized that it doesn't work.
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Should I Quit: Trying to Ge...

03.20.2023

Katie has written a novel. She worked hard on it and she thinks it's good, but the process of trying to get it published has been grueling. Should she just keep going? Or is it time to set the book ...

The Real Question episodes:

03.20.2023 Should I Quit: Trying to Get My Book Published? Katie has written a novel. She worked hard on it and she thinks it's good, but the process of trying to get it published has been grueling. Should she just keep going? Or is it time to set the book ...
03.13.2023 Should I Quit: My Choir? Lisa has been a choir nerd for basically her whole life. But recently, with two young kids, she can barely stay awake for the rehearsals. Should she give it up to get more sleep? Or is this just a rough ...
03.06.2023 Should I Quit: My Relationship? Emily loves her boyfriend. There’s not enough good things to say about him: He’s kind and attentive and easy to be around. But she’s always wanted to be a mom, and he’s not so sure about kids. Can she stay ...
02.27.2023 Should I Quit: My College Club? When Cameron joined the disability advocacy club during his first year of college, it became a huge part of his life. Now a junior, he's the club president, and being president opens a lot of doors campus-wide. The only the ...
02.20.2023 Should I Quit: Karate? Sami has been practicing the same style of Karate for 20 years; it’s a huge part of her identity. But a recent conflict with her Sensei has thrown her relationship with the sport up in the air. Can she go ...
02.13.2023 Should I Quit: Dating? Rin wants a life partner, but they’ve never felt romantically attracted to someone before. Should they keep dating, hoping that they’ll find the right person? Or is it time to give up on conventional love tropes and pursue another path? ...
02.06.2023 Should I Quit: Being a Teacher? Lacy has been a teacher for fifteen year, and like many teacher’s right now, she’s feeling overwhelmed. School doesn’t feel the same as it did pre-pandemic. She feels pulled in a million directions, and out of hope. Is it time ...
01.30.2023 Should I Quit: Trying to Get Better? About a year and a half ago, Fran got sick. Since then, she’s been focused on getting a diagnosis and then trying to get better. But the kind of chronic illness she has – sometimes you don’t get better. Should ...
01.23.2023 Should I Quit: My Rule Against Long Distance Relationships? When Cheyanne was twenty-three years old she made a rule: no long distance relationships. They just set you up for heartbreak! Every time she fell for someone far away, she stuck by her trusty rule. But now, nearly six years ...
01.16.2023 Should I Quit: My Dream Job? Jaime loves birds. Since they were eight years old they’ve wanted a career in bird science, and so far they’ve been living that dream! But a recently discovered chronic illness has been making the work more difficult. Is it time ...
01.09.2023 Should I Quit: My Church? Cari has been dreading going to church. In theory, she likes so much about the community. But lately, she’s been resenting her obligations there. Is this just a rut? Or is it time to move on? This week on Should ...
01.02.2023 Special Sneak Peek! (Forgiveness: An Alternative Account) Beloved co-host of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, Matt Potts, released his book Forgiveness: An Alternative Account a few weeks ago and it is so! good!! We're very excited to bring you an exclusive excerpt from the book - ...
12.19.2022 Should I Quit: Quitting? Vanessa and Ariana reflect on how the show's going and whether Vanessa's thoughts about quitting have changed since starting the season. We're taking a short break for the holidays but we'll be back January 9th with our next episode! -- ...
12.12.2022 Should I Quit: Interior Design? Emily has always been passionate about decorating her home. It’s a big creative outlet for her! But the online culture around interior design has started to bother her – it's all focused around buying more stuff in order to feel ...
12.05.2022 Should I Quit: Calling My Parents? Hannah calls her parents…a lot. Like four times a day. She loves talking to them, but all her friends think it’s weird. So she’s started to wonder: am I being too clingy? This week on Should I Quit? Vanessa and ...
11.28.2022 Should I Quit: My Small Business? Since the start of the pandemic, Shannon’s confectionary business has really been struggling. Now she’s getting kicked out of her shop space and she's wondering: is it worth it to move somewhere more expensive? Or should she just cut her ...
11.21.2022 Should I Quit: Watching Youtube? Casper spends a lot of time scrolling through YouTube videos. He feels like he should have a better evening routine, but the algorithm always pulls him in! Is it time to just go cold turkey? This week on Should I ...
11.14.2022 Should I Quit: My Dad? Our guest this week has a hard relationship with her dad. After years of hoping it would get better, she’s starting to feel like it might be time to quit. This week on Should I Quit? Vanessa and our guest ...
11.07.2022 Should I Quit: Texas? Mae lives in Texas. She grew up there, her whole family is there, there are a lot of things she loves about her life there. But now that she's raising two small kids, she's beginning to think: Is this really ...
10.31.2022 Should I Quit: My Name? When Eleanor got married, she took her husband’s last name. Now, nineteen years and three kids later, she’s working on a PhD. The PhD feels separate from her family life, something she’s doing just for herself. And so she’s started ...
10.25.2022 Quitting: A Thesis Is there something in your life that's making you miserable, but you feel like you need to just put your head down and get through it? Have you considered... just not doing it instead? This week, Vanessa starts our new ...
10.04.2022 Should I Quit: Trailer Our first episode of Should I Quit is coming October 24th! If you'd like to be on the show, you can submit a question here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
09.19.2022 Endings With help from Gilmore Girls and the song Closing Time from Semisonic, Vanessa and Casper explore the grief of endings and share about their upcoming projects. -- You can find out more about The Nearness at https://www.thenearness.coop/. Should I Quit ...
09.12.2022 From The Happiness Lab: Making Friends as an Adult featuring Casper Casper recently joined The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos for a special episode on overcoming loneliness–a feeling many of us are all too familiar with. On The Happiness Lab, Laurie shares the latest scientific research and inspiring stories that ...
09.05.2022 Humility Casper grew up with a lot of confidence. And as he’s gotten older, that confidence has only been encouraged and solidified by the various privileged identities that he inhabits. Knowing that, he wants to intentionally cultivate a practice of humility. ...
08.22.2022 Trusting Your Gut Vanessa has always had very good instincts about people. But recently she's started to wonder: where does that gut instinct come from inside of her? And how can she make sure her 'gut' is reflecting her wisdom, instead of her ...
08.08.2022 In-Laws Lily has a boyfriend who she loves. But you know who she doesn’t love? Her boyfriend’s brother. He makes Lily feel small and hurt and honestly angry every time they see each other. But Lily wants to have a good ...
07.25.2022 Language Hima’s parents moved to the United States when she was two years old. Her first language was Telugu, but her early teachers encouraged her parents to speak English at home. Now, she’s not entirely fluent. Hima knows that learning the ...
07.11.2022 Career When Rachel was working on her PhD, she always thought she would graduate and work at a science museum. But the pandemic changed her plans, no museums were hiring. But now she’s wondering, was that change forever? Or should she ...
06.27.2022 Dating Mariah has filled her life with meaningful friendships. In fact, she bought a house with her best friend and is helping to raise her friend’s kid. Now she’s starting to think about what role a romantic relationship might have in ...
06.19.2022 Juneteenth Spotlight: The Final 5 Campaign We're cross-posting this special episode of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, which we've released today. This year in commemoration of Juneteenth, Not Sorry is spotlighting The Final 5 Campaign, a coalition working to close the final five youth prisons ...
06.13.2022 Maternity Leave Anna had her first child during the pandemic and she found her maternity leave to be really isolating and depressing. It was only once she was able to go back to school and work that she felt like herself again. ...
05.30.2022 Stop Motion Sarah Steinberg is passionate about making stop motion animation. It’s so satisfying, she could easily spend hours at a time working a single project. But Sarah also lives with rheumatoid arthritis, which makes her art practice difficult and often quite ...
05.16.2022 Quitting Marie-Hélène is the kind of person who changed her major a million times during college. But after a while, this habit started to feel embarrassing. So she made a promise to herself: “I am going to become the kind of ...
05.02.2022 Roommates Dani has always wanted to live alone. Now, at 28, she’s living the dream. She owns her condo and doesn’t foresee needing a roommate. But looking ahead at the rest of her life, she’s a little worried about what she ...
04.18.2022 Hard Conversations A few years ago, Lindsay left an abusive relationship. Since then she has almost completely cut her abuser out of her life. But there’s one friend they still share - and that friend is getting married. Lindsay has never talked ...
04.04.2022 Non-Binary Ruth has been a woman their whole life, but that label has never quite felt right. Recently they had an experience where a stranger gendered them “wrongly” and it felt amazing. Since then they’ve been wondering, should they identify as ...
03.21.2022 Diagnosis Maya Gosh has been in pain for years. She’s been going to doctors, trying to figure out what's going on with her body, but nobody seems to think anything is wrong with her. And lately she’s started to feel like ...
03.07.2022 Break-Ups Last fall, Sophie Clark broke up with her long-term partner and it was one of the hardest things she’s ever done. Trying to organize her grief, she began a weekly ritual - lighting candles and journaling about the break-up. But ...
02.21.2022 Jealousy with Dana Schwartz Dana Schwartz is a #1 New York Times Best Selling author (go read her new book!), top charting podcaster, and Twitter super-star. But still, she sometimes finds herself looking at other writers with feelings of professional jealousy. She doesn’t like ...
12.26.2021 Announcement: New Year, New Format Happy holidays! We're dropping in your feeds to share some news about the future of the show. If you’re interested in being on the show, please fill out this form and we’ll start contacting people in the new year. Hosted ...
12.13.2021 Trying to Be Cool Vanessa's step-daughter is very cool. But...is that a good thing? And what is coolness really? With help from West Side Story and Gone Girl, Vanessa and Casper explore the social capital and social manipulation of coolness. -- We are so ...
12.06.2021 Bad Chaplaincy (Part 2) We got so many questions for our "bad chaplaincy" episode last month, we decided we needed another round! This week, Casper and Vanessa answer your questions about work, exes, and how to know when you're on the right path. -- ...
11.22.2021 The Sensible Thing Casper's life is on a path and generally he's pretty happy with how it's going. But every so often, he likes to fantasize about what it would look like to step off that path. What if, instead of living his ...
11.08.2021 Bad Chaplaincy This week we're taking some time to answer real questions from our audience! We touch on questions about disappointment in love, whether it's okay to be late, and setting boundaries. -- We are so grateful to our supporters on Patreon ...
11.01.2021 Anti-Vaxxers Risa has a family member who isn’t getting vaccinated and the relationship is really troubling her. She wants to respect the values of the person she loves, but is finding that hard to do when the ‘right thing’ seems to ...
10.25.2021 The Stories We Tell Ourselves Vanessa used to have a helpful story she told herself about her depression. She let herself stay in bed some days and understood that it was important for her health. But lately, she hasn’t been staying in bed. The story ...
10.18.2021 Back to School Casper is feeling a lot of nostalgia for his graduate school experience. There are so many times in his day to day life where he feels like he should know more and he wishes that he had a teacher to ...
10.04.2021 Karens: Part 2 Back in May, Vanessa brought us the question 'am I a Karen?' That episode focused on gender and the way systems of power can fail and frustrate women. This week we bring you part two of that conversation, where we ...
09.20.2021 The Monarchy Casper has a soft spot in his heart for the monarchy. He understands all the absurdities of the institution, but he can’t get rid of that feeling that he associates with childhood and history and national identity. Is it okay ...

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