Your life needs more ‘existential grit.’ Here’s how to find it | Kate Bowler
By Big Think
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This interview is an episode from The Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation. Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ► https://bit.ly/thewell-youtube Watch Bowler’s next interview ► Why toxic positivity is making us miserable https://youtu.be/ebCqCPxZcV8 Joy is often mistaken for a stronger version of happiness. But historian and writer Kate Bowler argues that they are fundamentally different emotions. Happiness, she explains, depends on things going well. It’s cumulative, fragile, and easily undone. Joy, by contrast, can exist alongside pain, grief, and uncertainty. It doesn’t erase what’s broken — it helps hold it together. Drawing from psychology, faith traditions, and her own experience living with stage four cancer, Bowler explores why joy is less about ease and more about connection, openness, and love. It’s not a mood or an achievement, but a way of seeing reality clearly and still saying yes to life. Joy, she
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