Bonus: That Blah You’re Feeling Is Called Languishing

Worklife with Adam Grant

TED

Management, Worklife Podcast, Worklife With Adam Grant, Work Life Balance, Ted Talks, Podcast About Work Life, Ted Adam Grant, Adam Grant Podcasts, Ted Podcasts, Adam Grant, Organizational Psychologist, Business

4.8 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2021

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Adam wrote a viral article for The New York Times on a feeling many of us are struggling with right now. It's somewhere between burnout and depression: languishing. This neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus—and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times on April 19, 2021, with the headline, 'There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing'. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. The producer for NYT was Kate Winslett, and the producer for TED was Sheena Ozaki.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey worklifers, something completely different today.
0:03.0	I recently wrote a New York Times article on how many of us are languishing, stuck in
0:07.4	a void between depression and flourishing.
0:10.0	I've been overwhelmed by feedback from people who said they felt seen, so we thought you
0:14.0	might enjoy hearing it.
0:15.4	If you know anyone who might benefit from it, feel free to share it.
0:19.7	At first, I didn't recognize the symptoms that we all had in common.
0:23.7	Friends mentioned they were having trouble concentrating.
0:26.6	They just reported that even with vaccines on the horizon, they weren't excited about
0:30.6	2021.
0:31.6	A family member was staying up late to watch national treasure, again, even though she
0:36.4	knows the movie by heart.
0:38.1	And instead of bouncing out a bed at 6am, I was lying there until 7, playing words with
0:43.3	friends.
0:44.6	It wasn't burnout.
0:45.8	We still had energy.
0:47.3	It wasn't depression.
0:48.6	We didn't feel hopeless.
0:50.2	We just felt somewhat joyless and aimless.
0:53.2	It turns out there's a name for that.
0:55.5	languishing.
0:57.2	Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness.
	...

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