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Your life needs more ‘existential grit.’ Here’s how to find it | Kate Bowler
Posted
March 17, 2026
Views
68,010
Likes
2,857
Comments
120
Engagement
4.38%
March 17, 2026
68,010
2,857
120
4.38%
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6:30Now PlayingThis interview is an episode from The Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.
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Watch Bowler’s next interview ► Why toxic positivity is making us miserable
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 suggests, isn’t a bonus for the fortunate. It’s something that carries us when happiness no longer can.
Read the video transcript ►
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About Kate Bowler:
Kate Bowler is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host, and Professor of Religious History at Duke University.
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About The Well
Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.
Together, let's learn from them.
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