📖 Languishing

How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down by Corey Keyes

September 23, 2025

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“Languishing feels like being on an airplane, circling above the runway but unable to land.”

— Corey Keyes, Languishing​

Ever feel “blah”—like you’re not exactly thriving, but not sinking either? That’s languishing: the overlooked gray area between depression and good mental health.

In Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down, sociologist Corey Keyes unpacks this subtle, widespread feeling—and shows how to move beyond it.

SMARTEST TAKEAWAYS

1️⃣ Languishing Isn’t Depression: It’s mental weariness and meaning-drain, not deep sadness. People who languish may feel foggy, unmotivated, or unsure about what’s missing—but don’t always realize it’s a problem that can be changed.

2️⃣ Why We Languish: Chasing perpetual “happiness” (e.g., dopamine hits from phones and shopping), losing meaningful community, and social isolation all feed this modern blah-state. Flourishing isn’t about feeling one emotion—it's being alive to the full emotional spectrum.

3️⃣ Five Vitamins for Well-being: Keyes’s spotlights the behavioral “vitamins” that flourishing individuals do more of each day, each week: 1) help others, 2) learn something new, 3) socialize, 4) play, and 5) participate in spiritual or religious activities.

Corey Keyes is a Professor of Sociology at Emory University
📸: Audra Melton/The Observer

INSIGHTFUL EXAMPLE
Play as a Vitamin

One of Keyes’s favorite “vitamins” is play. It’s easy to miss the joy in moments if you’re just documenting them for social media.

His advice: “Don’t let your smartphone and your obsession with social media remove all the joy from your joy, okay?”

Let yourself be present and playful, and watch energy return in surprising ways.

BOOK FACTS
Languishing

  • First published: February 20, 2024

  • Print length: 304 pages

  • Listening length: 8:53

  • Ratings: Amazon 4.4, Goodreads 3.6

WORTH WATCHING

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