About a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant wrote an article in The New York Times explaining the very thing I'd been quietly researching for so long.
The article is titled "There's a Name for the Blah You Are Feeling: It's Called Languishing."
The article begins like this:
“At first, I didn’t really know what this symptom we were all feeling was.
My friends said it was hard to concentrate.
My colleagues said that even though a coronavirus vaccine is coming soon, they are not very excited about the new year.
One family member said he stayed up all night rewatching the movie National Treasure, even though everyone knew the story.
“I woke up at 6 a.m., but instead of getting up right away, I just played 'Words with Friends' and stayed up until 7 a.m.” Many people, like Grant, have experienced severe stress, sadness, or loneliness and then felt depressed.
Apathy is a low-level mental fatigue, and people often overlook it, especially because of one of its symptoms, apathy.


As I researched what leads us to good mental health, I discovered that improving psychological, relational, and social 'functioning' can fundamentally improve well-being.
I decided to call this state of good health 'flourishing'.
Learning to be more accepting of your emotions, changing the stories you tell yourself, embracing yourself and others more, and building communities that care for one another and feel a sense of belonging creates a virtuous cycle that increases your resilience to the stress, adversity, and pressures of modern life.
As you become more functional in your daily life, your life satisfaction deepens and your overall emotional well-being improves.
When I do my job, I feel better.

--- From "Entering"

As many as 50 to 60 percent of us experience withering.
Withering occurs particularly in three stages of life.
The first stage is adolescence (ages 12-19), a difficult transition period.
The second stage is the youth period, between the ages of 25 and 34, when people build their careers and start to start families.
In the final stage, after the age of 75, the withering gradually returns.
During this time, many older adults not only grieve the loss of loved ones, but also lose their former mobility and independence, and suffer from various illnesses and humiliations.

--- 「Chapter 1.
What happens when you fall into withering?

The researchers began the experiment by leaving the participants alone and allowing them to administer electric shocks to themselves, entirely at their own discretion.
Then, a surprising finding was made: a significant number of participants preferred electric shocks to being left alone with their thoughts.
Sixty-seven percent of men and 25 percent of women chose to receive electric shocks at least once during their time alone with their thoughts.
I am familiar with these research findings.
But I hope you, like me, will look at these results again through the lens of languor.
Essentially, this study removed all possibility of external connection for participants, leaving them completely alone and inducing them into a state of withering.
What was the result? Forced isolation, a situation that induces temporary withering, led to self-harm, if not suicide.
Participants chose to self-harm in order to feel something rather than feel nothing.


In recent years, researchers have begun to recognize that social and environmental factors significantly influence health-related data.
In other words, we are not simply biological beings free from our surroundings.
This awareness was the guide for my vitality research.
To get a full picture of mental health, we need to look at the quality of our relationships (are they warm and trusting) and the strength of our community connections (do we feel cared for and supported by others).
A growing body of research suggests that these social "resources" are particularly effective in preventing health problems in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities where alternative resources for seeking help are scarce.
For some, this means that increasing their energy levels can dramatically improve their quality of life.
(Omitted) This does not mean that vitality can ‘erase’ injustices such as long-standing stressors such as over-policing, disproportionate incarceration, income inequality, and discrimination.
From an immediate treatment perspective, creating revitalizing conditions increases health equity and allows for individual efforts and public health policy interventions to work together.

--- 「Chapter 2.
How did we become so withered?

Again, we focus too much on happiness.
Following the typical American trend, we often pursue a 'good' feeling and try to achieve our goals as quickly and directly as possible.
But the more that happens, the more the butterfly of happiness flies away.
A better way, and the approach advocated in this book, is to focus on achieving happiness by working on the vital elements of healthy functioning.
By focusing on finding better ways to function healthily, including increasing your vitality factors, including purpose in life, self-acceptance, and social integration, you can function well and, as a result, achieve happiness.

--- 「Chapter 3.
From “Don’t be fooled by happiness”

It is well known that depression is a very difficult illness to treat.
However, if we can raise the state of a patient who has fallen into a state of apathy to a state of vitality, mental health can improve even if they suffer from a mental illness.
Vitality helps prevent depression.
Why haven't we cured depression yet? This is the wrong question.
Instead, we should ask:
Why don't we focus on our own infirmities? The American medical system, promising miracles, encourages us to put off maintaining our health by offering hope that even if we fall ill, we can still recover later with excellent doctors or expensive procedures.
But too many families take their health for granted, leaving them with a huge financial burden, and the national economy loses millions of dollars in lost productivity and creativity.
Now that we've made some progress with the Affordable Care Act, it's time to move on to the next step.
We need a system that encourages and supports people to maintain their health and to use that health to live better lives.
Rather than focusing solely on disease, we need to invest in systems that focus on vitality and health.

--- Chapter 4.
From "We are not one-dimensional humans"

Learning something new, of your own choosing, in your own time, for your own reasons, is a surprisingly powerful antidote to boredom.
We naturally associate education with compulsory education, and we usually think that the door to education closes once we enter the workplace.
But even in old age, you can find great joy in learning new things.
We can find meaning at any stage of life, even in compulsory education, if we discover a connection between the knowledge we gain and our lives or interests.
This is especially true if we view personal growth as a true source of pride.

--- Chapter 5.
From "Learning: Creating Stories of Self-Growth"

To be vibrant, we need to feel equal in our social relationships.
In fact, many relationships are formed in situations where people have different social statuses.
Parents and children are not equal.
(Some people say that it is not a very healthy goal for children to remain friends with their parents as adults.) Employees are not equal to their bosses or managers.
We all have different levels of power and status in different areas of our lives.
This kind of inequality can send the message to the other person, "You don't belong here" or "I'm superior."
But it can also send a message that says, 'I understand you, you belong here, we are equals.'

--- Chapter 6.
From "Relationships: Building Warm and Trusting Bonds"

Why do people in wealthy countries report higher life satisfaction but less sense of meaning in their lives? More puzzlingly, why do people in poor countries consistently find more meaning in their lives? I suspect that when respondents defined "life satisfaction," they interpreted it to mean, "Do I have access to the indicators of success necessary to survive and find vitality?"
But can people who assess their lives as having less "meaning" than people in poor countries truly be more satisfied with their lives? I don't think so.
When the meaning of life diminishes or disappears, true well-being also disappears.
Here, well-being is not a measure of success in the form of achievement, but rather a sense of living well.

--- Chapter 7.
From "Spirituality: Embracing the Inevitable Twists and Turns of Life"

But the goal is not that extravagant.
If your life revolves around keeping yourself and your loved ones safe, feeding your family, and paying your mortgage, you need to remind yourself often that these things are important.
Because you are providing much-needed care and support, and you need to recognize what that means.
That's enough for now.
And in most cases, pursuing purpose doesn't require completely changing careers or having the resources to upend your life.
(syncopation)
So how can we figure out how to create meaning in our lives? Let's start by asking ourselves a few questions.
Research shows that less than a third of people say they have a purpose in life and answer "yes" to the following questions:
1.
Do you want to help others (make them happier or reduce suffering) or improve the state of the world?
2.
Do you believe you have the talent, skills, and personal qualities to do so?
A central, if not unique, challenge in finding your life's purpose is figuring out when and how to answer "yes" to these two questions.
The purpose in life that most people seek may be waiting right in front of them or hidden in their homes.
The secret to finding this purpose is to convince yourself to seek it out.

--- Chapter 8.
Purpose: A life that contributes meaningfully to others and the world

Play researchers (yes, there are such researchers) have been fighting an uphill battle for a very long time.
The definition of play often includes the fact that it should be a choice, not a necessity, in everyday life.
Some might ask, if play is a choice, is it really necessary to do it?
If play becomes a chore, won't the benefits of play disappear? Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist and director of the National Institute for Play, argues that unstructured fun is essential for adults to find vitality.
Brown presented evidence that a lack of play in the first decade of life leads to a number of negative outcomes, including depression, aggression, impulsivity, rigid thinking, emotional dysregulation, and a lack of meaningful relationships.
--- Chapter 9.
From "Play: Time Out of the Daily Routine"

Good mental health is not an empty category.
A state of good mental health is one filled with vitality, including a sense of purpose in life, a sense of belonging, social contribution, self-acceptance, acceptance of others, warm and trusting relationships, autonomy, and personal growth.
Vitality makes life worth living and fills us with things that add quality to the quantity of life we ​​are given.
(Omitted) If life is dull, don't be complacent about your current situation.
Let's not just be satisfied with having finished this book and find out why it's so dull.
It's a good starting point, but it's not everything.
I want you to dream of what could happen and ask, 'Why not?'
Let's fight for vitality.
Let's overcome pain, loneliness, and emptiness.
Let's embrace the light.
Let us believe in the path before us and take steps to reach it each day.
Let us believe that there will be something more beautiful around every corner that appears before us.
Vitality is something you deserve.

--- From "Going Out"