You Deserve to Flourish

Sometimes, life doesn’t feel very lively.

In 2022 and 2023, I spent an unusual amount of time watching Vera – the British crime show featuring a brilliant but grumpy female investigator. At the time, I was spending a lot of time working in the yard, putting in a vegetable garden, planting an oleander hedge and azaleas along the walks. I would work outside in the morning, do some freelance work, and then I’d turn on the TV. I would nestle into a corner of the sofa, make a cup of tea and watch two or three episodes of Vera, usually until it was time to go to bed.

I loved Vera’s tenacity, gruff exterior, and compassion. Sometimes the stories would veer in an unexpected direction and the criminal would turn out to have some heartbreaking motive that seemed to come out of the blue. It kept me interested.

And if I ever did get bored with Vera, there was always Midsomer Murders – all 23 seasons.

I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t exhausted. I wasn’t burned out. I still had energy to garden, work, play with the dog and go for long walks. I was just feeling a little unexcited by life, sort of half-empty and unfocused.

It turns out many, many people were feeling similarly at the time, and if anything, I was a little behind the times. There had been a wave of what was happening to me that had started sometime in 2021. At that time, during the first half of the pandemic, most people in America – about 60%, I’ve read – were feeling similar.

Even a person like the ever-upbeat Adam Grant – one of my favorite personalities today (he’s a popular science author who writes a lot about how our mind works) – seemed to have lost his endless energy and enthusiasm. He said he was lying in bed late every morning playing Words with Friends instead of getting up at 6 a.m. as usual.

So not only was I not alone in what I was feeling, but there was a word for it: languishing.

Languishing is when you feel not quite yourself and not fully alive. You lose a sense of purpose and feel disconnected from people around you. Life feels like it’s not under your control anymore. You feel like there must be more to life, but you can’t imagine how. 

Adam Grant said it feels like “you’re indifferent to your own indifference.” Another person said it’s like “being on an airplane, circling above the runway, but unable to land.”

Languishing has a lot to do with loneliness, beyond them both being three-syllable words that start with L. People who feel lonely aren’t necessarily languishing, but if you are languishing, you probably feel lonely, too. So it’s no wonder that with the social isolation of the pandemic, languishing became widespread.

Languishing makes you feel like there’s nothing you can do about it – but it’s not true. Because so many people were experiencing it during the pandemic, there has been a lot of research into what can help.

According to Corey Keyes – a psychologist who is one of the experts on the subject – these are the keys to “how to feel alive again in a world that wears us down”:

Learning. Learning something new, whether it’s a historical subject or how to play the flute, or anything in between, helps you feel more alive, independent, and in charge. That’s because it shows you’re capable of change and able to create that change for yourself.

Connecting. Despite people having hundreds of friends on social media, many are still struggling with meaningful relationships. That’s because true friendship is a deeper connection that involves trust and mutual understanding – things that don’t necessarily enter into online interactions. Making time to be with true friends helps you feel connected, and that translates into feeling more alive.

Finding a purpose. Purpose sounds lofty, but it doesn’t have to mean shifting your focus away from your daily life or searching for some mysterious insight. Your purpose could be as close to home as providing safety and security for your family, or, if you’re on your own, working toward a better life for yourself. You probably already have a solid purpose but might not be aware of it. What’s yours?

Having a spiritual practice. Again, this doesn’t have to be something grand or mysterious, and it doesn’t have to be related to religion or a recognized spiritual path, although that can be right for many people. It’s enough just to focus on what really matters. Pay attention to those moments that feel joyful or significant, whether it’s when you’re listening to music, watching the birds, or spending time with family. When you feel connected to something larger than yourself, you’ll feel a greater sense of belonging and meaning in your life.

Play! Research shows play isn’t just for kids – adults need it too. Play means doing something for the enjoyment of it, and not for the results. Play increases well-being, reduces stress, and boosts overall life satisfaction. So play does lead to important results, after all! A simple way to include more play in your life, even if you’re not so young anymore, is to start doing more things with other people that you usually do alone. For example, watch a sports game along with a group of friends.

So it turns out the things that help with languishing happen to be the same as what it takes to live a fulfilling, full life in the first place. A life where you’re flourishing instead of languishing. And all of us deserve that.