To flourish is to maintain a functional level of mental health.

Pure and simple, what does that mean?

That means to be able to confront, handle obstacles setbacks,

was a degree of resilience to be able to emotionally process

difficult experiences in healthy ways, such as by reaching out,

disclosing, talking about our experience rather than seeking addictive substances.

But more even than that, flourishing is the ability to seek and explore the world and pursue possibilities, opportunities to be able to grow and expand one's skills and

one's creative endeavors. If we look at Abraham Maslow's famous existentialist idea about human needs,

the very top of the pyramid is self actualization, which means thinking outside of the box,

being able to embrace life, find fulfillment, find meaning,

all of that is the sort of ultimate expression of mental health.

And so to flourish is to be moving in that direction.

On the other hand, languishing is what is contrasted with flourishing and languishing is

when we are moving away from opportunities,

shutting out people, moving towards new challenges with pessimism rather than optimism,

training from opportunities to grow,

where we view life as hollow and empty of meaning.

So there is, in this positive psychology sense,

flourishing versus languishing is an idea of mental health that's free from the usual rubric of

pathologizing people as having personality disorders and it takes a kind of more existential approach which is you're either moving towards

fulfillment meaning self actualization creativity or you're moving away from it, which is languishing.

Barbara Fredrickson, who's one of the great evolutionary psychologists.

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