Your life needs more ‘existential grit.’ Here’s how to find it | Kate Bowler
- Andy McIlvain
- 4 hours ago
- 1 min read
Video from Big Think
Your life needs more ‘existential grit.’ Here’s how to find it | Kate Bowler
"This interview is an episode from The Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.
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.' from the video introduction
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