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“With his pioneering research, Corey Keyes put languishing on the map. In this powerful book, he brings it to life. Get ready to rethink your understanding of mental health, update your views on happiness, and come closer to realizing your potential.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential If you’re muddling through the day in a fog, often forgetting why you walked into a room . . . If you feel emotionally flattened, lacking the energy to socialize or feel joy in the small things . . . If you feel an inner void—like something is missing, but you aren’t sure what . . . Then this book is for you. Languishing—the state of mental weariness that erodes our self-esteem, motivation, and sense of meaning—can be easy to brush off as the new normal, especially since indifference is one of its symptoms. It is not a synonym for depression and its attendant state of prolonged sadness. Languishers are more likely to feel out of control of their lives, uncertain about what they want from the future, and paralyzed when faced with decisions. Left unchecked, languishing not only impedes our daily functioning but is a gateway to serious mental illness and early mortality. Emory University sociologist Corey Keyes has spent his career studying the causes and costs of languishing—the neglected middle child of mental health. Now Keyes has written the first definitive book on the subject, examining the ripple effect of languishing on our lives before deftly diagnosing the larger forces behind its rise: the false promises of the self-help industrial complex, a global moment of intense fear and loss, and a failing healthcare system focused on treating rather than preventing illness. Ultimately, Keyes presents a counterintuitive approach to breaking the cycles keeping us stuck and finding a path to true flourishing. Unlike self-improvement systems offering quick-fix mood boosts, his framework focuses on functioning well: taking simple but powerful steps to hold our emotions loosely, becoming more accepting of ourselves and others, and carving out daily moments for the activities that create cycles of meaning, connection, and personal growth. Languishing is a must-read for anyone tempted to downplay feelings of demotivation and emptiness as they struggle to haul themselves through the day, and for those eager to build a higher tolerance for adversity and the pressures of modern life. We can expand our vocabulary for describing our inner experiences and deepest needs—and, with it, our potential to flourish. *Includes a downloadable PDF of charts, graphs, and diagrams from the book
“With his pioneering research, Corey Keyes put languishing on the map. In this powerful book, he brings it to life. Get ready to rethink your understanding of mental health, update your views on happiness, and come closer to realizing your potential.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential If you’re muddling through the day in a fog, often forgetting why you walked into a room . . . If you feel emotionally flattened, lacking the energy to socialize or feel joy in the small things . . . If you feel an inner void—like something is missing, but you aren’t sure what . . . Then this book is for you. Languishing—the state of mental weariness that erodes our self-esteem, motivation, and sense of meaning—can be easy to brush off as the new normal, especially since indifference is one of its symptoms. It is not a synonym for depression and its attendant state of prolonged sadness. Languishers are more likely to feel out of control of their lives, uncertain about what they want from the future, and paralyzed when faced with decisions. Left unchecked, languishing not only impedes our daily functioning but is a gateway to serious mental illness and early mortality. Emory University sociologist Corey Keyes has spent his career studying the causes and costs of languishing—the neglected middle child of mental health. Now Keyes has written the first definitive book on the subject, examining the ripple effect of languishing on our lives before deftly diagnosing the larger forces behind its rise: the false promises of the self-help industrial complex, a global moment of intense fear and loss, and a failing healthcare system focused on treating rather than preventing illness. Ultimately, Keyes presents a counterintuitive approach to breaking the cycles keeping us stuck and finding a path to true flourishing. Unlike self-improvement systems offering quick-fix mood boosts, his framework focuses on functioning well: taking simple but powerful steps to hold our emotions loosely, becoming more accepting of ourselves and others, and carving out daily moments for the activities that create cycles of meaning, connection, and personal growth. Languishing is a must-read for anyone tempted to downplay feelings of demotivation and emptiness as they struggle to haul themselves through the day, and for those eager to build a higher tolerance for adversity and the pressures of modern life. We can expand our vocabulary for describing our inner experiences and deepest needs—and, with it, our potential to flourish. *Includes a downloadable PDF of charts, graphs, and diagrams from the book
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the cover[ 1 ]
What Languishing Looks Like
Paul was in seventh grade when the trouble started—or at least when the phone calls to his parents from the principal really started to pick up. He and his classmates had all entered middle school the year before, but only for a few hours a day every other week, per the new pandemic restrictions in his district. They’d missed all sorts of milestones—graduation from their elementary school, a summer of fun in between, and an orientation in person at their new school—because of the pandemic raging around them. Most of Paul’s classmates had never even set foot inside the main building before September rolled around.
Any chance of making new friends from the other local elementary schools had slipped away within the first few weeks of sixth grade. If students were learning in person, they were all masked up and leaving before lunchtime; if they were on Zoom, not a single kid kept their camera on the whole day. They’d never even seen their new teachers smile in real life—their faces had been hidden by masks. It felt hopeless and impossible to connect with new people and make a fresh start.
By the time seventh grade rolled around, Paul and his friends, most of whom were left over from his elementary school days, had started making trouble. Small trouble, at first: horsing around in the hallway, speaking out of turn in class, sort of normal seventh-grade stuff, or so his parents thought. But then things started ticking upward. Various destructive TikTok trends were taking off in schools all around the country—paper towel dispensers were getting ripped off walls, horsing around in the hallways turned into full-body tackles, and bathrooms were getting trashed on a regular basis. Paul kept getting caught—for petty vandalism, low-level violence couched as fun. His grades were slipping. Nothing dramatic, such as regularly ditching school, was happening, but his grades had been A’s and B’s, and now there were a whole lot of C’s sprinkled throughout his report card.
At home, things weren’t much more hopeful. Paul was spending hours alone in his room, or if he did come out, he slunk around with his hoodie up, refusing to talk to his parents beyond a cursory hello or goodbye. The silence unsettled them; he could barely meet their eyes at dinner. When he came home from school, he’d climb right into bed with his laptop, saying he had homework to do, but he also seemed to be missing school assignments left and right. He was just so still all the time, his mom told me, as if he didn’t have the energy to move his limbs. It was unnerving. His high-achieving parents were distraught—this wasn’t the kid they knew.
Something about the isolation many kids feel at that time in their lives—things in middle school are, at best, hormonal, confusing, painful, stressful, and anxiety producing—was causing Paul to act out in ways he never had before. One day, to the horror of his parents, they found out that he’d bought a real-looking fake gun and posted about bringing it to school on social media. His classmates had immediately told their teachers, and the school had gone into lockdown mode before 9:00 a.m. It was a joke—of course it was a joke, the gun was just a toy, for God’s sake, and he didn’t even bring it in!—he told his frantic mother. But that joke would get him expelled from school before noon that day.
Why would he do such a shocking thing? Paul’s parents wondered. It was clear that, despite his hiding under his hoodie, he was screaming out to be seen....
Reviews-
November 27, 2023 Sociologist Keyes (coeditor of Flourishing) sets out in this perceptive guide to lead those who feel “emotionally flattened” onto “a path toward flourishing.” Defining languishing as an “absence of wellbeing... that millions of people were experiencing but found hard to put into words” during the Covid-19 pandemic, Keyes explains that the state of mind involves a lack of excitement, community disconnection, and “the constant feeling of unease that you’re missing something that will make your life feel complete.” It can also precipitate self-harming behaviors, suicidal thoughts, and “absenteeism” from work or school, among other ill effects. Antidotes include “follow your curiosity to learn something new,” “build warm and trusting relationships,” and “mov closer to the Sacred, the Divine, and the Infinite.” Keyes explores these and other remedies in a wide-ranging and eclectic collage of insights, research, and anecdotes. In the section on forming relationships, for instance, he elucidates principles undergirding true friendships (equality, reciprocity, and the willingness to empathize and compromise) and discusses how gangs answer a core emotional need by providing their members with “psychological safety.” Keyes carefully sketches the contours of a pervasive and sometimes-nebulous phenomenon, though his “action plans” can skew vague; such suggestions as “allow your curiosity to triumph over your disappointment” and “fix what can be fixed” may leave readers feeling as adrift as they did before picking up the book. Taken together, though, Keyes’s eye-opening musings will be a balm to those in need of a fresh perspective.
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This timely audiobook is an engaging follow-up to the bestselling author's work on psychological flourishing. Narrator Landon Woodson's heartfelt performance authentically represents the author, a renowned sociologist. Keyes's own storytelling skill creates a smooth transition into the audio format since the scientific information is presented in the context of real-life people and their struggles. In a post-pandemic world, many listeners will find that the author's ideas resonate. Keyes provides deeply personal descriptions of a newly defined mental state, languishing, whose hallmarks are emotional flatlining and a blunted ability to engage purposefully in life. Woodson's emotionally wrenching delivery of the final chapter, detailing the author's personal journey to overcome languishing after horrific child abuse, will leave listeners choked up and vastly inspired. J.T. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
