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Jonathan Fields: [00:00:14] Hey, so have you ever felt that sort of just gnawing sense of emptiness, that void inside you that desperately needs to be filled and you keep pushing forward, throwing yourself into activity after activity, but something just still feels kind of off. Like you're going through the motions but not feeling truly alive. If this resonates, you're not alone. Millions of people are experiencing this state of what is often called languishing. Falling in that space between depression and flourishing. My guest today, Corey Keyes, has devoted his life's work to understanding and overcoming this experience. Corey is a professor emeritus of sociology at Emory University and a pioneering researcher in the field of mental health. He introduced groundbreaking concepts like social well-being, flourishing, and the two continuum a model showing mental health and illness operate on distinct spectrums. And in his latest book, Languishing How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down, it provides an insightful roadmap for just recognizing when we've drifted into languishing and practical steps to reignite that spark of aliveness within us. In our conversation, Kory shares wisdom from decades of research exploring the societal factors contributing to widespread languishing and the crucial role of things like warm relationships, play, purpose and transcendence, and our journey back to flourishing.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:34] So join us to gain a deeper understanding of what languishing truly is and also isn't, along with a renewed sense of agency in shaping your state of being because it's time to feel alive again. Let's dive in. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is SPARKED. You know, as we have this conversation, it's probably a couple years past when I first stumbled upon the the idea of languishing and probably, like so many other folks who are not steeped in the research in the world of academia, I came upon it when I was reading Adam Grant's article, which I think was back in the New York Times, referencing it and then referencing your work on the topic. And it really struck me because, you know, you, you introduce this, this, this notion of this, this term or this experience of state languishing that seemed to describe an experience that so many people were having but really couldn't wrap their heads around what was going on or give it language. Um, I'm curious what drew you to really want to dive deeply into this?

Corey Keyes: [00:02:51] Well, part of it, Jonathan, was it was deeply personal. And and I begin the book by talking about my teenage years where, like many teenagers, that where the research now shows are like me today, they were experiencing languishing and I so was I. I didn't call it that back then, but it it struck me as something I didn't know about depression. So that was a godsend, because I think what happens to a lot of people is they don't have a word for it and they can't describe it. And so I think a lot of well-intentioned clinicians and psychiatrists will just lump it in with depression. But what I was feeling then, and I still experience it personally several, many days, is this gnawing sense of emptiness, like there's a huge void, literally, physically, there's this void in me, and the desire is that I want to fill it up immediately and get rid of that feeling. And so that sense of emptiness and that sense of a void being inside of me is what helped me understand. I think that we were talking about something different from depression, and especially from not only depression, but burnout as well.

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:14] Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. I know you write it was more like I was on autopilot, compelled to keep doing, to throw myself at activity after activity, leaving little room for the thoughts that rose up when I was alone with myself. And I have to imagine that a lot of people are listening to that and probably nodding along, thinking to themselves, oh yeah, I felt that, or I'm feeling that, or some some version of that, but really not understanding, like, is there something wrong with this? Or is this just grown up life?

Corey Keyes: [00:04:44] Yeah. It's been with us. It's part of life. Jonathan. Yes. And that's what I learned as I began to go down the historical road to understand whether there was any The equivalent in prior centuries. And it turns out, yes, I write about this, this eighth deadly sin that did exist prior to the 12th century in Christianity, and it was called acedia and acedia when it's described by these, these religious adherents in the monks particularly, they were the desert monks, as they were known back then. They were writing about this feeling of having no feeling. That's the irony. We have to talk about it as a feeling. But really, when when you're languishing, suddenly you, you, you stop doing and you rest and suddenly you don't feel anything. And and that's the amazing thing. Human beings are like most living things in this world. In this world, we are created to feel emotion and whether we like it or not, whether it's good or bad, at least when you feel emotion, you feel alive because you're responding to the vicissitudes of life. Languishing back then was this stagnation and emptiness and feeling numb, and it often led these religious adherents to stray from the path which, you know, is not not good. If you are seeking God in this life and to. Right. And so it was it was considered sinful, a source of sin. And it got removed in the 12th century. Um, I could tell you the exact pope, Pope Gregory the Great, but we don't know why. We don't know why. And I can only speculate that it didn't quite fit neatly in the other deadly sins that we now know as the seven.

Corey Keyes: [00:06:32] So it's there. It's been with us, and it's it will always be with us. Because here's what the way I think of it, it's an existential wake up call or an alarm clock. When you feel this way, it's telling you you've left behind the good things that gave your life meaning, direction, purpose, and all those good things that make life worth living. So it's like an alarm clock that goes off when you started to do things that take you away from those things that were giving your life purpose, belonging, contribution and meaning. And it's telling you it's like knocking on the door saying, wake up. You don't don't leave me behind too long. Because if you stay there at this, at this point of emptiness, too long as I say it becomes pathological. Previously, it's a normal response telling us you, you need to go back to doing the things that were giving you meaning, or you need to stop devoting all your time to things that are taking you away from those things that gave your life meaning. So I think what happens is that we hit the snooze button on that existential alarm clock, much like we hit the snooze button when we say, I want to get up at 6:00 and exercise, and I go, I don't want to. And when we do that, then it goes from a normal response to the loss of meaning to a pathological place where lots of bad things start to happen, as I detail in the book.

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:57] Hmm. It seems like you also you describe, um, this is actually straight out of I think it's, um, some of the research that you did, I think you published around 2002, where you were analyzing some data from 1995, like this data set of midlife experiences and, and kind of identified this spectrum from flourishing to moderate mental health to languishing to depression. So it does seem like this is sort of like a state that falls within the broader spectrum of mental health.

Corey Keyes: [00:08:27] Yes. The way I think of it is it's a state of being mentally unhealthy. You don't necessarily end up going go from being mentally healthy to immediately mentally ill. Right. You sort of you can fall in this in-between category where you spend a lot of time being mentally unhealthy. And as we know, the equivalent is we do a do a lot of physically unhealthy things that don't immediately create disease and physical illnesses. But if you persist, right, don't get enough sleep. Your diet isn't very good and you don't exercise and you smoke, or you drink too much alcohol for too long, eventually it creates. It goes from physical unhealth to physical illness. And that's the way to think of languishing. It's a place where you are mentally unhealthy and in and of itself, it's not very good for you to be there, but if you stay there too long, you can begin to slide into what we now consider, you know, the mental disorders that we now are taking far more serious.

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:34] Yeah. So it's almost like a not necessarily a leading indicator of where you're heading, but a warning light to a certain extent of where you might head. Does that does that land?

Corey Keyes: [00:09:43] I love the way you put that. That's exactly it's it or it's sort of the version of the wake up call, and it's telling us, okay, this can go one of two ways. It's telling you you need to engage in activities that restore, right, restoration of good mental health, which I call flourishing. Or you're going to persist in doing the things that are leading you away from those things that create flourishing because you think they're more important, right? They're part of your career. They're part of a variety of other things that society has taught you. Those are far more important. And if you do that far too long, well, it'll go in a much worse direction. Yeah. So it's a leading indicator in the sense that we should be as a society. I even argue public health needs to take this far more serious, because we need to respond to it before it leads to even worse problems.

Jonathan Fields: [00:10:43] I know in in that same early data set, we learned that the risk of major depressive episode was two times more likely among languishing than moderately mental healthy adults, and nearly six times greater among languishing than flourishing adults. So that is huge. You know, like that. That is quite the wake up call.

Corey Keyes: [00:11:04] You would you would have thought so in and I want to step back and I, I incorrect something that I should have thought about ahead of time. I use the word moderate mental health and that sounds like it's okay. That's good enough. What it really means is that you're languishing mildly to moderately if you're not flourishing. Here's the thing. You're languishing to some degree, and even if you're languishing in the moderate category, you have a much higher elevated risk for a variety of problems, not the least of which is if you've never had depression, your risk has gone up pretty high compared to people who are mentally healthy. That is flourishing. So even those who are moderately mentally healthy, who are languishing moderately, need to be. They need our attention because it will continue to get worse. They will go from moderate and slide into what I call now severe languishing. What I used to just call languishing is a severe form of languishing. And that's where you get risks and odds ratios that go to 5 to 6 times of what you just talked about. That's alarming risk. And yet here here I am 25 years later from publishing that data and publishing more studies. And I'm not the only one showing this, that the risk of depression and anxiety, among other mental disorders, is so much higher among those who are languishing. And yet we're not taking it serious at all. We're not even measuring it in our public health systems.

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:38] So so let's zoom the lens. I want to get more granular and understand this more, and also understand how to really suss out maybe how it's showing up in our lives and what we can potentially do about it. But also, I want to zoom the lens out before we get there and explore. You know what? How did we get here? You know, from a societal level, you describe that all the way back. You know, there was this a sin that kind of functionally equated to languishing then was, you know, like doesn't appear in the literature anymore, but the human condition and, and really focusing sort of like on the modern state of the human condition. What do you see as the really the significant contributors to this experience? And are you seeing this become a more pervasive experience in people?

Corey Keyes: [00:13:23] I wish we had the historical data to answer that question, that it's becoming more pervasive. I can say that during the pandemic, it was very, very clear that languishing was among the the most severe problems when it came to the mental health area. For instance, I can I can cite you some data that in Australia where they were using using my measure along with measures of depression, anxiety and measures of stress and and stress, anxiety and depression rose roughly 10 to 13%. So and stress was around ten and anxiety was around 12. Depression was 13 to be exact. But language, I'm surprised.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:09] Actually it wasn't.

Corey Keyes: [00:14:09] No, but this was, um, now this was 2019 comparing 2019 to 2021.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:16] Oh, okay.

Corey Keyes: [00:14:16] So I'm pretty sure that was just within the first year. And what happened was that languishing increased by 24% within that same time frame. And there's now data that I just saw published, um, within the last six months on teenagers within the first year and across 15 different countries, um, within 2021, roughly 8 to 13% increase in languishing among females and males. And even though males were doing slightly better male teenagers on average than the females, they had a slightly larger increase in languishing than the females. But but it's so it's it is very responsive to changes in our life. And so I suspect historically we could actually go through some monumental changes that have really sort of happened in our lifetime, not the least of which was that a fundamental change in the in the basis of our economy, in our in you and I, in our lifetime, we saw our economy shift from a primarily manufacturing to a primarily service driven economy, where in the latter educational attainment and more of it is is critical if you're going to succeed and if you don't have access to good education and continued education and achieving higher levels of education in this economy, you will end up in the low level end of service jobs where you have to cobble together more than one job just to get through. But here's the thing. And I write about this in the book. People who have high education have more work than they've ever had. They're working more hours than ever, and they're stressed out. Now, in this new world, just as much as the people who are stressed out because they're working fewer hours on average and have to put together two, sometimes three jobs and can barely make ends meet.

Corey Keyes: [00:16:19] So they're stressed out because they're working so much, but they can barely put food and health care in their household. And that's that is just one fundamental change that we don't seem to recognize in the previous economy. Getting a high school education and getting some sort of apprenticeship was enough to get some pretty decent jobs in a manufacturing economy. Those are gone primarily. Those are almost all gone. And the key to doing well in this world today is full access to really good education for the very beginning of life. And we're not addressing any of that right now in terms of inequalities. So I mean, so much in our life has changed in the last one. As a sociologist, I'll point out literally, we have had, um, the, the rug that comforted our feet from the, the, the coldness of the floor of life pulled out from under us. Think of my parents had pensions. Now, if you go online now, nobody is prepared for retirement. And lots of people are now having to say, I'm going to have to work until I'm 70 to, you know, sometimes 80 that they, they, they are living in a world where they're told to save for retirement, but they they don't have enough money to even deal with today's debts, let alone save enough money to retire. Those are just two ways in which I think we feel like the rules of the game have changed. Nobody asked us, and now we're told to be resilient and smile and get along and be thankful we have work. If. Right.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:00] Yeah. I mean that, you know, when you look at the bigger socioeconomic situation, it it kind of makes sense that so many people would be feeling this experience of languishing, especially if you came up with a certain set of expectations, you know, and sort of like in the middle, it feels like everything changed. You're like, but I was doing all the right things, you know? I was like, I was, I was traveling the path. I checked the boxes and, and there was a certain implicit promise. And now it feels like, as you described, the rug has been pulled out. I wonder, as you describe that, as we, you know, We move into what I see as as the next major evolution in in contribution and work, which is AI. Um, how that is going to shake all of this to the core as well, because it seems like now actually, um, the people who feel most exposed and are questioning the promise the most are actually those who invested substantial years and money in higher education, and they're seeing the work that is a part of the knowledge work generation being the work that is potentially going to transition the quickest. I think we're in such an interesting window when it comes to this. Right now. I don't think anybody really knows how it's going to shake out.

Corey Keyes: [00:19:19] No. And you put your finger on a really, really important issue that I think if we as a, if, if we want to succeed in, in whatever is to come next, I think and if we want people to still invest themselves into something of the knowledge economy. We have to be prepared to to say that there is something of of use beyond just being a brain dump, right? That we that we're more that you can't just take all that we've created and thought and simply say, now you're smarter than us because you did a massive brain dump of all of humanity without saying, you know, we still need people because of their amazing ability to be creative. Now, I'd like to think that there is going to be a challenge posted to people that we can't rest on our laurels, and maybe this will motivate a lot of us to really, really put on our our, our. I want what would be the word to really be motivated to to be as creative and thoughtful and as useful in the way human beings can be, and to have a really deep conversation. Are we really necessary? And I know the answer to that is yes, but we're now going to be challenged. What's what's going to be the next great thing that we as human beings can do that machines will not do? And I love to hear what people think. Um, yeah, let's unleash that, because we have been a pretty amazing we respond when things get really tough, and I'd like to believe that it will get tough. And we're going to respond and say, yeah, but there's so much more left in humanity. We haven't begun to scratch the surface. You wait.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:17] Yeah, I'm right there with you. And I feel like moments like these can be challenging and maybe the next five years or so, but also it it pushes you into the existential questions that so often we just kind of push to the side and we put our heads down and we do the work, you know, like we push through, we strive for strive for whatever the, you know, the cultural expectations of, you know, like, quote, success are for us. And we just kind of assume this is it rather than saying, but, but what what is this, you know, like and what is our like what is our role like, how do we take the seat and you know, like the, the culture of, of humanity and just individually like, what does it mean to me? Like, what am I how do I contribute in a way that makes me feel alive? And I think it's forcing a lot of people who've been able to ignore those questions to actually return to them. And of course, that's going to be some hard thinking. But my my hope and my sense is on the other side of that, that we really start to to examine how we show up in the world and don't in, in new ways that allow us to, to to not just continue to thrive and flourish, but to feel better in the moment, you know, along the way. What I'd love to do is sort of like narrow us our focus a little bit. I think it's been really interesting to interesting to sort of like look at the macro picture here and the broader notions, but no doubt somebody's going to be listening to this or watching it. And and in their mind, one of the big questions is going to be, okay, so this thing languishing like I think I kind of get it, but what does it really look like on a day to day basis, and how do I know if I have it? So I'd love to I'd love to drop into that a little bit more.

Corey Keyes: [00:22:56] Yeah. This gets me to the sort of some of the questions that are used in what my measuring tool. Right. I call it the mental health continuum. And it's, there's a short form because, you know, as, as we scientists, we start out trying to be as, as, as inclusive as possible. And you used to be 40 questions we would ask. And I've narrowed it down to 14 at least. And maybe in the future we can narrow it down a little more. But those 14 questions get at three kinds of wellbeing. And the first is what we talk when I call it emotional well-being, which is that happiness tradition. And I ask people, you know, how often in the past two weeks or past month, did you feel either happy or satisfied with your life or interested in life? And you have to have one out of those three. At least one of the three feeling good stuff every day or almost every day to begin to meet the criteria for what I call flourishing or to be mentally healthy. But then there are 11 other questions, five of which get at what I call social well-being. We asked. I ask you how often in the past two weeks did you feel that the things you do contribute anything of worth or value to your community or to your society? How often in the last two weeks did you feel that you belong to a community? And I give some examples.

Corey Keyes: [00:24:23] How often in the last two weeks were you able to make sense of what's going on in the world around you? Right. Those are just three out of out of the five. And then there's six. Psychological well-being. How often did you, uh, did you like most parts of your personality? How? Which is self-acceptance. How often in the last week did you feel that your life had direction or meaning, which we call purpose? And the third example I'll give you out of psychological well-being is how often the last week did you feel confident to think and express your own ideas and opinions? Right? So to flourish, it's not enough to feel good every day or almost every day. You have to have at least six out of the 11 signs of functioning well, right? The five social well-being and six psychological are representations of that. You're functioning well in this life, so you have to have at least six out of those of the 11 every day or almost every day, combined with at least one of the feeling good. And so I like to think of flourishing as you can put together.

Corey Keyes: [00:25:24] Right. If you think of all the various combinations, right, you only have only have to have seven out of the 14, one out of the feeling good. There's lots of different ways human beings find a way to flourish. Some might prioritize purpose. Some might prioritize purpose, personal growth, and self-acceptance. Right. And so I love that notion that there's a variety of different ways people can flourish, and that you only need seven out of the 14. When people sometimes hear the word, they jump right to the conclusion that I've given them another standard for perfectionism. No, you don't have to be good at all of them in order to flourish. It's just half. Seven out of the 14. But it's got to be that combination. Jonathan. It has to be that you feel good about a life in which your life has those examples of functioning well, it has purpose, it has belonging. It has. You're contributing things to your community. It's that you're accepting of others. You're accepting of yourself. You exercise some confidence and you participate in the in the common good, giving your opinions. So it's a it's a kind of feeling good that's premised on something that's I would consider has substance.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:46] Mhm. I mean what's interesting also is tell me what the, the, the three different conditions were for the first question again the three different states. It was interested.

Corey Keyes: [00:26:56] Yeah. Interested in life. Satisfied with life or happy.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:00] Okay. So what's interesting to me is you're not you don't have to check all three of those boxes. You know, it's kind of like if you can say yes to one, which means you can be going through an experience or maybe a season where happiness feels really hard to access. And we've all been there and we all will be there again. Maybe you're struggling with a loss. Maybe you're, you know, there's a challenge at work, whatever it is. And you're saying, um, that doesn't opt you out of the possibility of flourishing just because. Because you can still you can still say, like, I'm not happy right now, you know, like there's things are really hard, but but I'm actually interested. Like, there's things that that are happening around me and within me that are interesting to me. And, and I get to check that box and then, and then, you know, like I want to look at some of the other ones also. But like, it's not about, you know, you can you can flourish, you can sort of, you know, like find your way out of or not be or in the space of languishing, even if in the moment you're not necessarily happy, which is interesting to me.

Corey Keyes: [00:28:10] Yeah, I love that you pointed that out because, you know, there are times in our life and I was there when I was in college sometimes, and when I was getting my graduate degree and, and when I was a professor, there were times in my life where I really had to buckle down and work on some things and get better as a scholar, as a teacher, as a colleague. And that was hard. I didn't feel particularly good, but I was working on something that mattered, felt worthwhile, it was engaging, and it was interesting to me. I never lost interest in life, but it didn't always feel good. But when I was working on things that engaged myself in my interest, that was a leading indicator that I was moving in a really good direction. And so I love that point. It doesn't have to always feel like off the charts like happiness or satisfaction. But are the things you're doing in your life, do they engage what you would say, your interest? Because those things pull you forward into life, not away from life.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:29] Yeah. And so, I mean, not so often, but at times those interests, you know, like more regularly invested in, can grow into passions. You know, they can grow into something that really becomes more of a fire within you.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:43] Yeah.I love that notion. Um, I think I have a better sense for what languishing is now. And also, I think that that sort of checklist. Um, you know, the, the, the fundamental assessment, the 14 different things is really useful for somebody to be able to just kind of like, even if you're not going to formally fill something out to just kind of glance through and say, huh?

Jonathan Fields: [00:30:04] Yeah.You know, like, how am I doing according to this, to just get a sense for, you know, what might be going on. Part of my curiosity is, and this is something you write about as well, is is also what languishing isn't. You know, you reference things like burnout earlier. Um, we talked about or who think about depression, anxiety, burnout, you know, stress, overwhelm. What's the relationship there? Because my sense is that languishing is not those things.

Corey Keyes: [00:30:33] No. And it's not to say that they don't have a connection. But you're right then. And just going through a few of the questions that I used to measure flourishing, you write all of those questions are about the presence of good things interest, happiness, satisfaction, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, your sense of contribution, self-acceptance, acceptance of other people, a sense that you're that you can make sense of the art of the world. You're confident. Languishing is the loss of that good stuff. And that's why I said it's an alarm call, because suddenly you you can feel it when you've lost some of those things. You're starting to feel like what was a fullness to your life is emptying. It's disappearing And languishing is the absence of those good things purpose, belonging, contribution, confidence, autonomy, growth, all of those things along with you're suddenly you're not feeling interested in life, not satisfied much, not happy. Depression is all about the presence of negative things, negative emotions, and malfunctioning. Right? Psychiatrist. Measure it as the presence of either sadness or a loss of pleasure in the things that used to bring you pleasure. That's kind of close to interest. But, you know, and then there's seven signs of malfunctioning things like you're sleeping more or less than you used to, you're eating more, or you're eating less than you used to.

Corey Keyes: [00:32:06] You're thinking about not wanting to live much more, or even ending your life when you you never thought about that before. So when you're not depressed, it means you don't have any of those negative Symptoms or you don't have enough of them. But the absence of depression doesn't mean suddenly you have all those good things, right? Purpose. Belonging. You can land right in in between. There's nothing bad. There's nothing good. And that's why I called it an Adam used this phrase. It's the middle child. It's the middle child. Way between depression and flourishing or good mental health. Now, burnout is an interesting one, because that's when we feel completely exhausted from having gone through a period in life where we have had a lot of demands and challenges. And that happens for people of all walks of life, even the high end professionals with high, high educational degrees. Right? The difference is that a lot of people who have a lot of high challenges with with really good jobs and good education, have a lot more discretion and can manage those high challenges. And they have choice over how and when. Sometimes they do those things compared to people with lower prestige or lower socioeconomic standing and jobs where they don't have choice or discretion over anything that has to do with their work.

Corey Keyes: [00:33:43] So burnout is about when you meet a lot of challenges with very little, uh, personal discretion or choice or support. And I love the fact that, you know, um, there's lots of studies that have come out and I write about many of them and that I like to use the word people can do hard as long as they have support and camaraderie and choice and discretion. And there's also lots of data now showing that when people are flourishing, they can handle a lot more challenge. So burnout is what happens when we meet challenge without good mental health, right? When we're languishing and when we don't have much support in or very little control over our life, and very little discretion over when things happen and how they happen. And so I'd like to think of, you know, burnout can can land you in languishing, but languishing can also be a source of burnout. You can feel completely without control and without any sense of choice over your life. And so you just are dealing with all of this adversity without any sense of agency over handling it and how to handle it. And so you it gets to people when, when they have very little control or choice or discretion over how they meet challenge. Ouch.

Jonathan Fields: [00:35:16] Yeah, that makes so much sense. And the whole I've heard it described in the past, maybe it was in literature as locus of control. Like when we feel like we don't have the ability to both have enough control over the means to actually achieve something or the outcome that we're responsible for delivering on. It's it's a brutal effect, and especially if you're just kind of like heads down grinding towards it, but you feel like you don't have what you need to either opt out of it or to do what's being asked of you. And you just go and go and go and go until there's nothing left to grind. I have been there. I pretty much anyone I know has been there, um, sometimes at my own hand. Um, and I have to pull out and actually ask, like, what am I doing here? Um, but it's really interesting, the distinction you made as well, um, between languishing and conditions like depression, where like, languishing is more like the absence of the feeling of empty of all these things. And depression is the presence of all these other things that that really become heavy for us. It's an interesting way to think about, sort of like teasing out what maybe is going on internally. And by the way, for anyone listening or watching, we are not offering mental health advice here.

Jonathan Fields: [00:36:27] This is, you know, we're not your therapist. We're not like, this is these are ideas that I think are just really interesting and valuable. And if you feel like you're feeling any of these things in a level where it's really intruding in any meaningful way in your life, please reach out to other people who are qualified to to help you on an individual level. Throughout this conversation, you've referenced the notion of purpose and a number of times, and I think this is probably something that most a lot of people probably connect with. And this notion of purpose, and also as an interesting way to, to help us navigate out of languishing. Um, but I think the, you know, the sort of teased out nuance here, at least in my reading, is this notion of we're not talking about sort of like one big unifying capital P Life purpose. Right. Which I think a lot of people are stymied by. They feel rejected by, like, I don't have it. I can't find it, you know? Therefore, I can't ever feel the way I want to feel or live the way I want to live. It's much more about like just having a sense of purpose in everyday life and every activities, everyday interactions, which pretty much everyone does have some level of access to.

Corey Keyes: [00:37:34] Yeah, yeah, I talk about how I think I sometimes and I did this. We're very good at we humans at complicating things. And purpose is really about wanting to help something or someone in this world. Or think of it this way, in your own little way, and in your own little part of the universe. You want to leave the world as good or even better than what you found it. And normally, what's good about helping or taking it up to the level of purpose when you're. When I say purpose, I'm saying you've chosen to an to devote a part of your life to, to helping something that has no direct value to you. But you care about it and you want to help somebody else or something else be better, or you want to address some form of suffering or injustice in the world. There's all kinds of ways. But I think what happens is we don't think it's a purpose unless it's grandiose. And I don't believe that that's true. You could be leading an amazing purpose quietly in a small community of 100 people right there. Right. And and, you know, and the sad part of it is here I am coming to you from North Carolina, where just 100 miles down the road, they were devastated by lean. And sometimes it takes enormous disasters like that for people to be reminded that, you know, I can be as useful right here in my community because I have to be and we have to do this together. And so you see an enormous outpouring of people getting involved in doing just what is, I call this sense of purpose. They may not call it that, but they probably feeling this sense that I'm contributing something that's worthy and valuable because it's needed. And that's just go where there's something that the world where there's a need and where you're drawn to, and you'll find that kind of feeling where I'm being of use. And that's what human beings really want. We just want to be useful to some degree.

Jonathan Fields: [00:39:53] Yeah. And it really doesn't take much to find that if you let go of the illusion that it's got to be this big thing, or else it doesn't count. Like, literally, if you take 24 hours and just open your eyes and just say, like, what are the tiny little ways I could be useful to a person, to an animal, to the environment, like whatever it may be. It's like, I feel like when you prime your brain to start to actually look for it, you start to see it in a way that you didn't realize it was just all around you all the time. Is that your.Sense?

Corey Keyes: [00:40:27] Yes, yes. Because even if you don't see it, if you just take a moment and look into somebody's eyes and talk to them, you'll sense that there is a huge hunger for connection in our world, in our society in particular, we are just hungry for connection. You can feel it. It's almost electric. And what you need to do is just look each other in the eye and say, how are you doing really, and mean it. And before you know it, it's like, wow, you don't realize how much somebody needed that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:41:06] Yeah.

Corey Keyes: [00:41:06] To be seen. To be heard.

Jonathan Fields: [00:41:10] Unless you're in my former home of 30 years, New York City. In which case people look at you and think that you're just some weirdo who wants money from them or something that can go across the street. But we we do. We all need it. And, um, you know, and it is those little things just to be seen for, for a moment, I think is can be so powerful. Um, yeah. You also talk about the importance of play, which I thought was really, really interesting and probably really devoid in a lot of people's lives who are doing the adulting thing. You know, they kind of like, oh, that's the thing we used to do. Like, but now I'm a serious adult. Like, now I have responsibilities. There's like, there's no sort of play in my life. Like, if it happened, like if I get an opportunity randomly here and there. Sure. That's lovely. But like, there's actually no I don't need to actually have this in my life to. And you make a counterargument to that?

Corey Keyes: [00:42:09] Yeah. And what I love when I talk about play, it becomes even more obvious how these activities, or what I call the five vitamins, start to bleed into each other and encourage each other, because when you usually, um, even as kids, when we start to play, taking imaginative play aside, but even imaginative play we do with each other, we engage and connect and we, we are part of of of something social and collective. And so I to me, play is all about doing something just because it's fun. Only because it's fun. Now fun. It gets in our way because we we think, just check, check your notions of what fun needs to be at the door in the same way that you think about happiness as an American, because happiness doesn't mean the same thing all around the world. It varies in intensity here. Happiness has to be out of a scale of 0 to 10, an eight or higher. Fun doesn't have to be off the charts either. It can be enjoyable. That can be your your your version of it. And, you know, lots of games. I'm I'm not a play researcher, so I can be free with this notion. You know, play researchers argue well games have rules and structures blah blah blah. So it can't be play well in adulthood. I'm fine. Whatever allows you to step outside of the time where everything is commodified, where time is money, and just do because you just want to be with others and enjoy life.

Corey Keyes: [00:43:52] You are stepping into the realm of play. Yeah, but there's so much more. When when I learned about why pinball machines were created, I was I was astonished to find out that the man, the person who created pinball, created it because he wanted people to experience during the Great Depression the sense that what they do matters and to enjoy life because they can get better at accomplishing things and making things happen in the world. And that's what pinball, the whole story of pinball is. And The Man Who Saved Pinball, that movie and book, is all about showing the people in Chicago that it wasn't gambling, it wasn't a game of chance. It was a game that you developed skill. Yes, you had fun. Yes, you had to put a little money in there. But he showed them. I learned to get better and better and better at something, and I learned that whatever I can focus my mind on and do, I can accomplish something. So out of all the things you would think is that could lead to that play can can teach your children and continue to teach adults that what you do matters.

Jonathan Fields: [00:45:12] Yeah, I love that. And I've been actively trying to cultivate more opportunities for play in my life for for all those reasons. You know, I think it's just we leave it behind. Um, like, sometimes forgetting that it's really fun to do things for no other reason than the feeling it gives you in the moment. And then if you can actually, you know, like build skill around that and gain competence at it also.Yeah. And connections and all those other good things.

Jonathan Fields: [00:45:41] I mean, you look at the world of online gaming these days, and I'm not a part of that world, but I know folks who are and they will spend hours and hours and hours and not getting paid to do this. In fact, you know, they're paying for the privilege of having access to the games and the machines. And and yet it's just and it's effort. They're working hard. You know. They're probably working harder from a sort of like creativity and a cognitive and a collaborative standpoint. Then they may be doing at their jobs. Yeah. And yet they're doing it simply because they love doing it. You know, it's it's to them it is that thing. It's play. And they get better at it over time. And they and they do it with other people, you know. And it's there's something kind of magical about it.

Corey Keyes: [00:46:25] Yeah I love it. And we misconstrue it so much. We we tell them they're wasting their time. And I'm like, maybe not, maybe not.

Corey Keyes: [00:46:36] That's yeah. I think that's a great example of where they're probably finding some emotional well-being from getting better at something and realizing they can be an actor in this world, an agent. They can make things happen.

Jonathan Fields: [00:46:52] Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Keyes: [00:46:53] And they have connection. They have a community. They have a place where they belong.

Jonathan Fields: [00:46:57] Yeah, it's all right there for for the taking. Um, well, I so appreciate just the larger frame around this concept of languishing and and your lens on what flourishing is and, and these ideas that we've explored. And you're like, here, here's here are some ways to sort of get a beat on whether this is something you may be experiencing. And then here are some very specific notions that you can bring and explore to, to start to make the the journey from this experience of languishing into a state of, of flourishing is, I think, um, we all are going to probably find ourselves at some point in some level of this experience and understanding what it is and isn't, and then the fact that it's not, it's not a thing that we have to just live in. It's not a sort of a thing. Well, this is just life. But there are actually there are things that we can do to move through it. And out of it is, um, it gives us a sense of agency, right? It gives us that sense of like, I have some some agency and autonomy in this process, which I think is really powerful.

Corey Keyes: [00:47:58] Well, yeah. I use the phrase and I know other people have used this phrase. To me, flourishing is, is it's it's always been my North Star. And I think it's really what people deserve, because I think right now I think we're satisfied with something. A good version of life is good enough. At least it's not terrible. But there's so much more, and I don't think it's a luxury at all. The research makes that very clear. And so I think you have to believe that, that you deserve more. And that's good mental health, because that's what I mean when I talk about flourishing, a good life is being mentally healthy. It's more than the absence of illness. It's the presence of flourishing.

Jonathan Fields: [00:48:49] Mm. Thank you. And remember, if you're at a moment of exploration, looking to find and do or even create work that makes you come more fully alive, that brings more meaning and purpose and joy into your life. Take the time to discover your own personal Sparketype for free at sparketype.com. It will open your eyes to a deeper understanding of yourself and open the door to possibility like never before. And hey, if you're finding value in these conversations, please just take an extra second right now to follow and rate SPARKED in your favorite podcast app. This is so helpful in helping others find the show and growing our community so that we can all come alive and work in life together. This episode of SPARKED was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and Me, Jonathan Fields. Production and editing by Sarah Harney. Special thanks to Shelley Adelle for her research on this episode. Until next time. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED.