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Stop trying to turn your suffering into a success story | Kate Bowler
Posted
April 14, 2026
Views
38,260
Likes
1,610
Comments
127
Engagement
4.54%
April 14, 2026
38,260
1,610
127
4.54%
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2:02Now 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 ► How selfhelp became America's religion
American culture demands that pain be productive.
Historian Kate Bowler explores how the obsession with finding meaning in suffering turns into what she calls “purpose monsters”: the need to make every loss, failure, or tragedy count for something. But not everything happens for a reason. And not all pain is a lesson.
Bowler argues that grief deserves the dignity of honesty, not reframing. Instead of rearranging the past to find meaning, she suggests asking a different question: What’s left? And what might still be beautiful?
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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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