Chapter Content
Okay, here we go, let's talk about languishing. So, you know, what *does* languishing look like? I'm going to tell you a story about a kid named Paul, just to kind of, you know, illustrate what we're talking about here.
Paul was in seventh grade when things started to, well, go sideways, I guess you could say. I mean, that’s when the principal started calling his parents, like, a *lot*. So basically, he and his classmates had entered middle school the year before, but only, like, for a couple hours a day every other week, because of Covid, you know, the restrictions and all that. They missed out on all these milestones, like graduating from elementary school, having a fun summer, even just having an in-person orientation at their new school. Most of them hadn't even been inside the building before seventh grade actually rolled around.
And forget about making new friends. Those opportunities just kind of, poof, vanished. I mean, if they were learning in person, everyone was masked up and gone before lunchtime. And on Zoom? Forget it. No one turned their cameras on, *ever*. They hadn't even seen their teachers smile in real life, you know? It just felt hopeless, like, utterly impossible to connect and start fresh.
So by seventh grade, Paul and his buddies, mainly the ones he knew from elementary school, started acting out. At first, it was, you know, small stuff. Horsing around, talking out of turn, the usual seventh-grade shenanigans, or so his parents thought anyway. But then things escalated. Those stupid TikTok trends started popping up, you know, at schools everywhere. Like ripping paper towel dispensers off the walls. And the horsing around turned into, like, full-on tackling in the hallways. And bathrooms? Don't even ask. Paul kept getting caught doing this stupid stuff, like petty vandalism, you know, low-level violence disguised as a joke, I guess. And his grades were slipping. Nothing crazy, like skipping school, but, I mean, he was an A and B student before, and now, suddenly, there were C's all over the place.
And at home? Well, things weren't much better. Paul was, like, locked in his room for hours. And if he *did* come out, he'd just slink around with his hoodie up, barely talking to his parents. They said, you know, just a quick "hi" or "bye". The silence was unnerving. He wouldn't even look them in the eye at dinner. When he got home, he'd jump straight into bed with his laptop, saying he had homework, but he seemed to be missing assignments left and right. His mom said he was just so still, like he didn't have the energy to move. Super, super unsettling, you know? His parents were, like, high-achievers, and this wasn't the kid they knew.
Something about the isolation a lot of kids feel, you know, during those middle school years. I mean, those years are hormonal, confusing, stressful, anxiety-producing, at *best*. And it was causing Paul to do things he'd never done before. One day, his parents, like, freaked out because they found out he’d bought this super realistic-looking fake gun and posted about bringing it to school on social media. The other students told the teachers, and the school went into lockdown before 9 a.m.! He said it was just a joke, a *toy* gun! And he didn't even bring it to school! He said all of this to his frantic mother. But that joke? It got him expelled before noon.
His parents were just so shocked. Why would he do something so crazy? It was clear, despite him hiding under his hoodie, that he was, like, screaming to be noticed. Underneath his attitude, he felt powerless, like he had no purpose. He felt alienated, not integrated, his parents started to realize. How could he like his own personality, believe he had something to offer the world beyond some edgy post or a dumb prank, or even have warm relationships with people, in this, like, non-stop, crazy online world? Those are the building blocks of, like, really flourishing, and they feel totally out of reach for teenagers today.
So, yeah, it makes sense that a languishing teen might rather deal with the principal, his parents being mad, or even getting kicked out of school, than feel absolutely nothing at all.
Languishing? It’s more likely to happen during a few stages of life, affecting as many as, like, half of us. First? Adolescence. That's like twelve to nineteen, a tough time of transition for almost everyone. The second period is young adulthood, like, twenty-five to thirty-four, when people are starting their careers and families. And then, after seventy-five, it creeps back up again. Older folks are dealing with the loss of loved ones and their own health, their mobility, their independence.
Okay, but can *young* kids languish? I mean, it's hard to imagine a two-year-old feeling, like, an inner emptiness. But the truth is, yes, young kids can definitely show what researchers call a "failure to flourish". I mean, in rare cases, toddlers can show signs of depression. It's not always obvious, though. They might not seem sad. Some might just have, like, no expression, while others get super clingy.
Researchers have been looking more closely at early signs of distress in young kids, especially with the rise in mental health issues in young adults. There’s also been a shift toward using holistic measures of health that include not just physical and cognitive health, but also all the social and environmental factors.
There was this study from a few years back, involving thousands of children, that looked at flourishing in one to five year olds. They asked parents a few questions about their kid's emotional health. Like, does your kid bounce back quickly when things don’t go their way? Do they show affection? Are they curious about learning new things? Do they smile and laugh? A child was considered to be flourishing if the answers to all those questions were "always" or "usually."
The good news? Over half of them met those criteria. But, like, almost four in ten were showing signs of not flourishing. They lacked resilience, felt disconnected, were disinterested, or just, you know, didn’t laugh or smile much.
Kids with physical or developmental disabilities were at higher risk. And it was more common among kids from socially and economically disadvantaged families, especially those dealing with things like food insecurity or lack of sleep, and parents who felt they didn’t have enough social support.
Young children have this incredible capacity to flourish, but their families need support. If parents are working multiple minimum wage jobs with crazy schedules, if they don’t have access to things like parental leave, if they’re not able to interact with their children, if family and friends are overtaxed and underresourced, limiting their ability to help, and if neighborhoods lack playgrounds and shared spaces where families can connect? We're failing entire communities, and especially our youngest kids.
Now, in the United States, that failure to flourish increases from just over a third in one to five-year-olds to, like, half of those aged twelve to fourteen, and even more, like, three-fifths of older teenagers. So teenagers are basically, facing these, like, huge questions that feel impossible to answer: "What sources of information should I trust?" "How can I express myself without offending everyone?" "Why do I feel so different from my friends?" "What if being myself means losing friends?" "Am I even being a good friend?" "What is my sexual orientation?" "Why do I feel responsible for my parents' problems?" "Do I need to go to college to succeed?" "How can I help the planet when it seems like nothing matters?"
Younger teens, the twelve to fourteen year olds, send out warning signs, like self-harm. A study showed that the worse their languishing, the more likely they were to pull their hair, cut themselves, pinch, bite, burn themselves, and even have suicidal thoughts.
Another warning sign is early problem behavior, like drugs and alcohol. Usually, that kind of thing happens later in high school, but kids that are already languishing are already engaging in these things, especially the stuff adults don't see. So they might skip school, drink, smoke, experiment with inhalants.
Lack of support from friends makes kids more vulnerable to languishing, too. The number of teenagers reporting loneliness has basically doubled recently. Fewer kids say their friends invite them over, miss them when they're gone, tell them they're a friend, share secrets, and would pick them for their team at school. As teenagers deal with their own identities and self-esteem, they often don't have the energy to maintain close friendships.
There was this documentary about this trend in the lives of teens in a suburb of Atlanta years ago. And the issues back then have only gotten worse. There were a series of disturbing events, a teen was killed in a fight, another went on a shooting rampage at school, and a bunch of teens tested positive for syphilis.
This county was small, affluent, mostly white, suburban, middle- to upper-class families. Comfortable, privileged lives, you know? But the public health investigation revealed a hidden reality: group sex, alcohol abuse, drug use, all that.
The absence of meaningful relationships was a reflection of their parents' success. These kids had successful, busy, hardworking parents who could provide for their *material* needs, but they had little time or energy to provide for their emotional needs.
A recent study found that languishing was strongly linked to the quality of the relationships with their parents. Teenagers were asked, basically, "Are there people in your family who care about you? Will someone help you if you have a problem? Do the adults in your life listen to you and take your views into account? Do your parents consult you when making decisions about your life? Do you feel safe at home?"
Languishing went up as teens said "no" to more of those questions. Positive relationships with parents act as a protectant against mental health issues, predicting higher empathy, emotional regulation, problem-solving skills, and clearer goals.
But a lot of parents struggle to connect with their kids, or are just too caught up in their own problems.
Let's move on to young adults, college kids. So, there was this guy, Taral, and he went through this "YouTube phase" in college. He didn't want to get out of bed, but he also admitted that those days of just, you know, "chilling" didn't make him feel any better. They just made him feel guilty for wasting time. He wasn't depressed, he said, but the pressure to figure out his future was still lingering. He just couldn't force himself to make a choice. Astrophysics had too much math, and computer science was full of kids who had been coding since forever. So he postponed making any decisions and just kind of got stuck, unable to move.
He felt paralyzed and avoided everything. He started living alone, and he could go days without leaving his dorm room, without seeing anyone. He'd order food, do his classes online, and watch YouTube, like, all the time.
So whether kids are flourishing or languishing when they leave high school, parents want them to get a good education and be happy. That's the goal, right? But there's a big fixation on *happiness*, and that can be problematic. Feeling good when you aren’t functioning well isn't going to solve your languishing. Parents who are too focused on their kids being happy might be missing something important.
Too much pressure can really mess things up. College students have reported a rise in parental expectations and criticism. Rates of perfectionism have also gone up. Students can start to see life as a series of pass/fail tests, which hurts their sense of self and narrows their goals. And perfectionism? It's linked to eating disorders, anxiety, self-harm, and depression.
Today's students are faltering under pressure. Rates of depression and anxiety on college campuses have increased a lot recently. The overall number of students with mental health issues has doubled. The majority, well over half, aren’t flourishing.
Students were asked how often they felt they lacked companionship, and most of them said, “Some of the time” or “Often.” You can have connections and still feel isolated.
When college students think about mental health, they considered all five aspects of *social* well-being, like contributing to society, being integrated, making sense of the world, and accepting others, to be the *least* important. They wanted *emotional* well-being: happiness, satisfaction, and being interested in life. Psychological well-being, like having a purpose and building relationships, was seen as more important than social well-being but still less important than just *feeling good*.
But that’s the problem. We've focused so much on just "feeling good", and that lays the groundwork for languishing.
There are also all these societal and economic stressors, like getting into a "good school" and achievement anxiety. Anxiety goes up when teens have to focus on getting into college. Depression and substance abuse increase when chronic worry about grades and future opportunities set in. A lot of students leave college with just as many questions as when they started.
Of course, most parents want their kids to succeed out of genuine concern. They worry about the job market and want to make sure their kids don’t fall behind. And it's gotten to the point that higher education is diminishing the savings of families, and creating stress for everyone involved.
Getting a college degree today is seen as the equivalent of lifetime economic security. More children are sacrificing their childhood to create resumes that will get them into the best schools. So, you know, something has to give.
Attending a top-ranked college matters less than parents believe. Employers are starting to focus on soft skills like writing, communication, and problem solving. Some companies are even waiving degree requirements. It would be better for high school students to focus on finding a school with an environment that helps them flourish, a place that cares about their mental health.
When a university starts to measure student success in terms of flourishing *as well as* GPAs, we might actually have a university system worthy of the name "higher" education.
So what should universities be tracking? When students graduate, they should be happy and engaged, with a sense of direction and personal growth, accepting of themselves and others, and eager to contribute to society. Universities can and *should* create flourishing students.
Why do college rankings include things like professor-student ratios and alumni giving rates, but not the ratio of mental health counselors to students? What about statistics on mental illness diagnoses, attempted suicides, or the mental health-related dropout rate? Shouldn't that information be available? And shouldn't parents be able to demand it?
The rising wealth of universities hasn’t necessarily improved students' mental health. Colleges recruit talented researchers, but those professors spend less and less time with their students.
If the assumption is that a four-year degree is a requirement to get a good job, universities will fill their seats. But can we agree that more students should be flourishing *as a result* of attending college than when they arrived?
Languishing impairs students' ability to function. One study of medical students found that languishing increased their odds of having suicidal thoughts, dropping out of school, and engaging in unethical behaviors, like stealing answers or taking credit for someone else's work, and various others.
Languishing and unethical behaviors might be linked because they're both symptoms of overwork, competitiveness, and prioritizing profit. Languishing might cause medical students to make mistakes and then not want to admit them. When we lack purpose and belonging, admitting a mistake can be overwhelming.
Those medical students had worked hard to reach their clinical years. But languishing made them want to quit before they even started. If those students were engaging in risky behaviors, imagine what languishing is doing to countless others in their careers.
So you made it through school and launched into the "real world." In your mid-twenties, thirties, and forties, you face all sorts of new challenges, including careers, marriages, and parenting. This is another time when languishing is at its highest.
Our unique stressors, traumas, and communities twist us in different ways. There are also commonalities. Daily stressors just keep piling up. During the pandemic, mothers experienced a huge increase in the amount of mothering they were being asked to do, with little to no support, which led to an increase in languishing.
Postpartum depression is now recognized as a serious problem. But what about postpartum *languishing*? One study found that a big percentage of mothers were languishing, and these mothers were more likely to feel low "maternal confidence", meaning they doubted they were capable of caring for their child. Low maternal confidence puts stress on mothers and can also hurt their ability to form healthy attachments with their newborn, feel a strong sense of maternal identity, and find satisfaction in their role as caregivers. Higher self-compassion, psychological flexibility, resilience, and social support were all protective factors.
As kids get older, parenting doesn’t get easier. School stress takes a toll on parents and students. Choosing the best school, with limited information, can involve hours of research and agonizing. Other "invisible work" takes a toll on us as well. As adults, we also have to deal with taxes, curating a newsfeed we can trust, installing software updates, changing passwords, all that stuff. Somehow, we're always being asked to do more with less, until we feel like we have nothing left.
With all these stressors, it's no wonder adults have trouble enjoying life and finding fulfillment. We question the choices we’ve made. Did we choose the right place to live? The right partner? The right career? The right friends? The right balance? Have we neglected important connections for our work, our wallets, or our retirement plans? The voice in our head tells us it's too late to start over. Some of us made all the "right" choices and still feel unfulfilled. The things we worked so hard to achieve turned out to be besides the point.
When we lose meaning, it's hard to mentally go back to a time when things did matter, which just digs us deeper into the hole.
Sociologists have noticed that everyone reports more job-related stress today than ever before, even though the average number of hours worked hasn't changed much. Some people are working more hours, while others are working fewer.
People in high-level service jobs have more work and higher pay than ever. People in low-level service jobs are working slightly less, often because they can't find enough work. Regardless of the number of hours, both groups are stressed. One because they work too much, the other because they can't count on stable, continuous work.
Research shows that adults who are languishing miss more days of work per year. But when it comes to presenteeism, languishing accounts for a huge amount of lost work each year.
Flourishing builds immunity to stress. One study found that positive mental health is either a vulnerability or a source of resilience, depending on its level. Employees who were languishing had higher levels of distress. But the researchers found that employees who were flourishing had the lowest levels of distress, regardless of their job stress. What *did* impact their mental health was the support they got from their colleagues. We need coworkers we get along with, who are there for us, who understand that we all have bad days, and who create warmth, trust, and openness.
Working in a high-demand, high-stress environment that isn't supportive will hurt your well-being and make you more likely to languish.
But, let's think about it, is stress a prerequisite for languishing? A lot of times, no.
Years ago, I remember Oprah asked something that stopped me in my tracks. She asked, "How many days have you felt grateful for your nice home and your healthy children and your caring husband, but you still feel like a piece of the puzzle is missing? You feel there is a hole somewhere, and you think to yourself, 'Is this all there is?' It’s because your heart feels a longing for something more."
The women on that episode talked about feeling empty. Even those with strong marriages, good jobs, and nice homes felt adrift. One woman said she was looking for ways to satisfy an unsettling feeling, "like a void in the center of my soul."
Another said she asked herself, "Why am I here? My spirit keeps telling me there's more to this life."
And another said she was "looking for direction, a sense of purpose, something that defines who I am. I want something more; I just don’t know how to get there."
And another woman said she had "tried to find and fill the void with food, money, love, sex, possessions, self-help groups. I still have this feeling there should be something more."
A friend of mine told me she felt like she was languishing. She said, "Languishing feels like being on an airplane, circling above the runway but unable to land. It doesn’t feel like I’m in imminent danger, but there’s a sense that I’m waiting for a resolution that is taking forever to come. Strangely, I’m not even sure what it is. Anxieties that were never there pop up. Languishing puts you squarely in the present and makes you aware of all that is going on around you, but it’s not mindfulness; it’s hypervigilance."
"In moments of pause, it starts to feel like you aren’t really living like you once did, and too many things feel out of your control. Yet all the tedious tasks of daily living stay piled high in front of you. It feels like every day you’re putting out a hundred little fires and never getting to do the things that really matter, the fulfilling things you remember doing pre-pandemic. The world has largely returned to normal, but somehow I’m still stuck in a pandemic state of mind."
These women understood that their lives were objectively enviable but lacking the elements of flourishing. Were they expecting too much? Is it naive to think flourishing is attainable in this world? Flourishing might sound like constant happiness, but you only need a few of the signs of well-being to flourish. Plus, things like purpose, acceptance, and belonging are basic human needs. Flourishing is attainable for people from all walks of life.
Flourishing tends to peak between ages sixty and sixty-five, as many stressors go down. But at the same time, one's sense of purpose starts to decline. If you live past seventy-five, languishing comes back.
Increases in illnesses weren’t a significant cause of increased languishing. Instead, it was things like constipation, hemorrhoids, back pain, sleep difficulties, and foot injuries.
People spend less time with others as they get older. But here's the thing, something very interesting happens, relationships tend to be perceived as more intimate and satisfying. Sometimes, the reduction in social contact is an attempt to improve the quality of social contact.
Endings matter. When we think we have plenty of time, we don't think carefully about whether our life reflects our priorities. But when we approach the end, we focus on what matters. We shift from having limitless time to having a compressed time frame.
We're more likely to assess others based on whether they can provide emotionally close and satisfying contact. We don't put up with nonsense, and we choose to spend less time with people we don't admire or care about. We're also better at preventing unpleasant interactions. Couples learn to discuss sensitive topics in ways that prevent negative feelings.
Older adults who flourish, who feel they have a purpose and are contributing to society, live not only longer but also more meaningful lives.
So, as a kid, I spent a lot of time in confession, confessing my sins. Happiness, I was taught, would come after purging all the bad stuff and saying my prayers.
I never confessed to feeling empty, but maybe I should have. Because that was a real feeling too, you know?
Languishing was once considered the eighth deadly sin, although there is nothing sinful about it. Acedia, the historical equivalent of feeling blah, was on the list with vanity, envy, and the rest.
Acedia means an absence of care, whether for life or oneself. It was a restless boredom that tempted monks to disengage with religious life. Whatever you call it, acedia or languishing, it stops you from feeling or performing at your best, and it makes you feel powerless to change.
Acedia vanished from the list of deadly sins centuries ago. Nevertheless, it continued to plague people throughout history.
Languishing is just as bad today as it was in the past, though it's no longer seen as sinful, thankfully. Languishing isn’t a sin, it is a personal and global public health problem.